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By all accounts Gertrude Ellis Skinner was a giant of her time, boldly walking her own path and serving the community.

Next weekend, people will have the opportunity to hear from the woman herself — so to speak — When the Mower County Historical Society presents “Gertrude – A One Act Play.”

Written by MCHS Executive Director Randal J. Forster with Penny Kinney bringing Skinner to life, the play will take a dive into Skinner’s life and the roles she played in Austin and the wider area.

“She’s a fascinating woman. She’s a trailblazer,” Forster said. “To think of all the people she was connected with.”

Skinner was ahead of her time, serving as the first woman superintendent of the Mower County Schools, elected to the position after being nominated largely as a joke by Democrats at the time hoping to  buck the trend of Republican dominated offices. She served in the position for 10 years.

A prolific writer, Skinner also served as associate editor of the Austin Daily Herald for 20 years, traveled to Europe and the Middle East often and even worked her way into the court of the last Hawaiian king.

“She did so much when she was so dang young,” Kinney said. “She really wasn’t bothered. She just lived her life. I don’t think she really cared what anybody thought or did.”

Skinner was officially named as a Pillar of the Community in 2019. It was at this time that Forster, who is on the Pillars of the Community Committee, started looking seriously at developing a stage story around Skinner.

Pouring over her own words and the events she was a part of, Forster couldn’t help but to be taken by Skinner’s own narrative.

“I think it developed over time, but the real motivation was that I could find so much writing that was in Gertrude’s voice,” Forster said. “That’s what sparked me. I thought it would be fun to tell the story and have someone portray Gertrude than tell the story.”

The show, which will be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 3-4 and 2 p.m. on Nov. 5 in the MCHS Pioneer Building, is performed in the first person through Kinney and will often break the fourth wall to interact directly with the audience.

But there within lies the challenge for both Forster and Kinney.

“I think the challenge was to write,” Forster said. “When I took liberties to write other parts or transitions, my challenge was to try and write in how I felt Gertrude would speak.”

“I found it hard a little bit because I have a feeling she was maybe a little more direct,” Kinney said. “When she talks she uses fewer words. She uses a lot of words in her writing, so to make it all sound conversational is a challenge.”

After finishing the script, Forster sent it to a number of people, including Kinney, to get their thoughts on whether or not it could be a show.

Once he got feedback, Forster said the play was ready to go.

“I think we have something here,” he said. “I kind of continued writing and flushing it out a little more. We have enough to do a one act. We don’t have to do it any longer.”

Kinney, who is one of the nuns making up the St. Andrew’s Sisters trio along with Alice Holst and Coni Nelson, is used to being in smaller productions.

However, being a one-woman cast has been a challenge.

“I kind of like challenging acting parts,” Kinney said. “I’ve never done a one-person show before. That is interesting.”

“I really like connecting with the audience,” she continued. “In a regular play you don’t get the opportunity to do that.”

Surrounded by the history of the Pioneer Building with specific nods to Skinner herself, the play will take people back in time. There’s also been talk about the possibility of continuing a trend of bringing local history to life.

This has included talk of having actors be a part of cemetery tours to tell the stories of those buried within.

At the end of the day though, both Forster and Kinney hope that audiences take away a sense of profound history surrounding Skinner, but also that stories can come from anywhere.

“I think it also goes to prove that everybody has a story,” Forster said. “Gertrude was just an average woman, born on the outskirts of town and all these miraculous things happened to her. I think the average person, you can kind of put yourself in the same thing.”