Henrietta Longstreet Boggs (6 May 1918 – 9 September 2020) was an American author, journalist, and activist. She served as

First Lady of Costa Rica First Lady or First Gentleman of Costa Rica (Spanish: ''Primera dama o Primer caballero de Costa Rica'') is the title of the wife or husband of the president of Costa Rica. Traditionally, the president's wife was colloquially known as ''la presi ...

from 1948 to 1949 in the years immediately following the Costa Rican Civil War. She turned 100 in May 2018.

Biography

Boggs was born in

Spartanburg, South Carolina Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Off ...

. She was the daughter of Mary Esther Long and Ralph Emerson Boggs, a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

elder. In 1923, her family moved to

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, where her father started a construction business. After completing high school, Boggs attended

Birmingham–Southern College Birmingham–Southern College (BSC) is a private college in Birmingham, Alabama. Founded in 1856, the college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). More than 1 ...

, where she studied English and was a reporter for the student newspaper. While on a summer vacation, Boggs went to visit her aunt and uncle, who had retired in Costa Rica. While there she met and would later marry José Figueres Ferrer. Figueres would go on to lead the opposition forces in the 1948 Costa Rican Civil War. Therein he led a successful democratic revolution against the government, abolished the army, and catapulted Boggs to the role of first lady. From that vantage point, she successfully pushed for giving Costa Rican women the right to vote. Over time, Boggs realized that marriage and life in politics were incompatible, given her independent spirit in what was still very much a patriarchal society. Boggs divorced Figueres in 1954, and she took their children to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where she worked for Costa Rica's delegation to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

while pursuing her lifelong passion of writing. Her return to Alabama in 1969 came with a second marriage to Dr. Hugh MacGuire and her co-founding of '' River Region Living'', the city magazine that she would later sell, but for which she still wrote, up to the time of her death. Boggs was born during the

influenza pandemic of 1918 The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

and died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

at her home in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

, on September 9, 2020, at the age of 102, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama.

Documentary film

Her 1992 memoir of her years in Costa Rica, Married to a legend: My Life with Don Pepe, ''Married to a Legend: My Life with Don Pepe'', is the subject of the documentary ''First Lady of the Revolution''. The film was produced by Spark Media, a documentary film company headquartered in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boggs, Henrietta 1918 births 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama American centenarians People from Spartanburg, South Carolina First ladies and gentlemen of Costa Rica 20th-century Costa Rican women politicians 20th-century Costa Rican politicians Writers from Birmingham, Alabama Writers from South Carolina American emigrants to Costa Rica Costa Rican women diplomats Women centenarians