Juvenilia Porter, sometimes known by the pen name of Olive Porter, was a member of Alpha Chi Omega at Allegheny College. I’ve seen her first name spelled Juvenelia and she also went by J. Olive Porter. She was born on January 15, 1869. Her mother died when Porter was a teenager. At 16, she went to New York City where she may have had relatives. However, an Allegheny yearbook lists her as an active member of the chapter in 1898. That means she would have been almost 30 as a collegian. It does not appear that she ever graduated.
At some point, Porter went to New York City and made her acting debut under Charles Prohman. Two uncles were actors and her father managed the Opera House in Meadville, so she may have had contacts in the city. After several years as an actress in stock productions, she began working as a stenographer on Wall Street. Using her experience, she wrote a play whose original title was The Son of His Father. When it debuted on Broadway in 1909, it was The Ringmaster.
In 1913 she went to Europe to study languages and drama. A 1914 volume of The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega reported that she was “spending a year in Paris,” and she “recently collaborated on a play produced in that city.” She was in Paris during the Battle of the Marne and she assisted in the war effort with the French Red Cross. Her ability to write French shorthand and her typing skills were much needed assets.
She was at the American Embassy in Paris working for the Information Division until she returned home in the summer of 1920. Porter died at the French Hospital in New York City on May 2, 1922. The casket at her funeral had upon it an American flag as well as a French one.
