Etnah Rochon Boutte was an American educator, pharmacist, and clubwoman. She taught French at Fisk University and in New York City. She was executive secretary of the Circle for Negro War Relief during World War I.
Early life
Etnah R. Rochon was from St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, the daughter of Victor Narcisse Rochon and Kate Rochon. Her mother was a teacher, and her father was a member of the Louisiana legislature during Reconstruction. She had three older sisters, including Althea Rochon, who went overseas as a YMCA worker during World War I. Another older sister, Beatrice Frances Rochon, married architect Robert Robinson Taylor; Former government official Valerie Jarrett is the great-granddaughter of Beatrice Rochon Taylor.
Education
Boutte attended Fisk University, but left during her senior year in 1917 to do war work. In 1927 she petitioned for her degree, with a letter of support from W. E. B. Du Bois. After the war, in 1923, she earned a pharmacy degree, and a bachelor's degree in education and professional diploma in French, all from Columbia University. At the 1928 commencement exercises at Fisk, John D. Rockefeller Jr. presented Boutte with her belated degree, saying, "Here is a young woman who has a bachelor of science degree from Columbia and a master of arts degree from Columbia and the University of Paris, but she comes back to Fisk for her bachelor of arts degree, prizing it above all the others."
Career
Education work
Boutte was a school teacher in Opelousas, Louisiana, and was a teacher educator in summer training programs. She taught French at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. She taught French at New York's 137th Street YWCA in 1925, and opened her own school of French in Harlem in 1930. She was an officer of the New York Fisk Club, and a member of the Penelope Club in Brooklyn.
Wartime work
During World War I, while her husband was overseas as a member of John J. Pershing's staff,, Boutte was executive secretary of the Circle for Negro War Relief, a national fundraising effort organized in New York City. During World War II she chaired the Manhattan chapter of the Free French Relief Committee.
Community and health advocacy
In 1922, Boutte was one of the sixteen women who founded the NAACP fundraising effort the Anti-Lynching Crusaders, in Newark, New Jersey, with Mary Burnett Talbert as director. In 1927 she was on the committee of the Emma Ransom House at the 137th Street YWCA. She was president of the New York Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women in 1944 and 1945. After World War II, she worked with the American Cancer Society as a medical social work consultant, and ran "The Little Red Door", a cancer information center in Harlem. In 1952, she was a member of the New York City Cancer Committee Board. From 1943 into the 1960s, she was appointed to several terms on the Board of Visitors at the Warwick State Training School for Boys.
Boutte's Pharmacy
Boutte ran a pharmacy with her husband in New York for decades. In 1958 she survived an armed robbery while she was alone in the store.
Personal life
In 1914, Boutte married pharmacist Mathieu Virgil Boutte. In 1928, Boutte was in a serious traffic accident. In 1957, Boutte's husband M. V. Boutte died. On March 9, 1973, Boutte died. She was 92 years old. Boutte is buried with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.
