Alzira Peirce

Alzira Handforth Peirce Albaugh
Born	Alzira Handforth Boehm 31 January 1908 New York City, New York
Died	19 June 2010 Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting Sculpture
Movement	National Society of Mural Painters Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors
Spouse(s)	Waldo Peirce

Alzira Handforth Peirce Albaugh (née Boehm; January 31, 1908 – June 19, 2010) was an American political activist, artist, World War II veteran and radio announcer.

She and her siblings moved to Circle, Montana to live as homesteaders after their father, August Abraham Boehm, died. Their mother, Hazel Hunter Handforth (born September 12, 1883, Huntsville, Missouri - died circa 1957, Central Islip, New York) was a suffragette, a homesteader, and later, a restaurateur in New York's Greenwich Village in the 1920s. Her father, August Abraham Boehm (born 1880, Vienna, Austria-Hungary – died 1916), was a pioneering Austrian-bornNew York City real estate developer of Jewish descent. August Boehm had graduated from Columbia University in 1901 but was affected by the panic of 1907 in which his own father, Abraham Boehm (July 28, 1841, Höringhausen, Germany - July 3, 1912, Mount Vernon, New York), a pioneering German-born JewishNew York City real estate developer, lost most of his fortune. Boehm & Coon (est. 1882) had commissioned one of New York's first skyscrapers, the 11-story Diamond Exchange Building (1893–94), as well as The Langham, a prestigious Manhattan apartment building. The elder Boehm partnered with Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in introducing gas engines to Europe.

Growing up in McCone County, Montana, Alzira played the harmonica, drew, and rode horses. When she was 13 she returned to New York and sought employment through one of her paternal uncles, an architect. In New York she studied at the Art Students League and later traveled to Paris to study. She painted, sculpted, and drew many works of art. Her poetry was published in The New Yorker.

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