Logan Wister Starr, Sarah, LL.D.
Biography as described by the Philadelphia History Museum
Sarah Logan Wister Starr was born in 1873 and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and, later, at Belfield (a large house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Throughout her life, she was involved in a wide variety of organizations in Philadelphia and Germantown. Most notably, she served as president of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1921 to 1941. One of her many contributions to Woman's Medical College was the establishment of the Wister Fund in 1953, which provided money to erect new buildings on the school's East Falls campus. Starr was the vice chairman of the World War I era National League for Woman's Services at the state level (Pennsylvania), as well as the Germantown branch. In that capacity, she raised two million dollars for children in Belgium. She was also chairman of the Women's Committee of the Liberty Loan program for the Federal Reserve District, and in 1917, she led the first parade for the Liberty Loan campaign in which several hundred women marched from the Women's Club of Germantown to Germantown Academy. Starr also served as president of the Colonial Dames and of the Women's Permanent Emergency Association of Germantown. She was associate trustee of the Board of Libraries at the University of Pennsylvania and served as chairman of the Germantown branch of the Civic Club. Starr was a member of the Acorn Club, Print Club, Sedgley Club, Germantown Historical Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and Society for the Preservation of Landmarks. She was heavily involved in preparations for the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1926. She founded the Zoe Valley Library in Nova Scotia, where she summered as a child. Starr also wrote histories on her ancestral homes of Belfield and neighboring Stenton. With her cousins Frances and Anne, she published the magazine "The Sparrow." She was awarded honorary degrees from Ursinus College in 1933 and the University of Pennsylvania in 1941. She died in 1956.
In 1901, Sarah Logan Wister Starr married James Starr (1870-1937), a mining official, and settled at Belfield. James graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1891 and Towne Scientific School in 1892. He served in the Spanish American War. The Starrs were frequent travelers, embarking on several "Round the World Cruises" during the 1930s. Sarah and James' daughter, S. Logan Wister Starr (1903-1979), married Dr. Daniel Blain (1898-1981) in 1936. Blain, the son of Presbyterian foreign missionaries, was born in Kashing, China. He was a psychiatrist who received his M.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1929. Logan and Daniel Blain's son, Daniel Blain Jr., sold the Belfield property to La Salle University in 1984.