Mimi LaFollette Summerskill

Miriam LaFollette "Mimi" Summerskill (June 2, 1917, Moscow, Idaho-January 31, 2008, Belle Mead, New Jersey) was an educator, author, political activist, and vineyard owner.

Mimi was the eldest of four children. She grew up in Colfax, Washington where her father was an attorney and politician and her mother was the daughter of the Congregational Church missionary. She was educated in the local public schools. She studied the violin, was rodeo queen, and took lessons in elocution with Ida Lou Anderson. She began college at nearby Washington State University and graduated from Stanford University where she played the violin in the college orchestra and was part of the Speakers' Bureau.

In the pre World War II radio era she hosted her own show for NBC, broadcasting from Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. In the 1950s she worked on several programs in the early days of public television for KQED in San Francisco.

A firm believer in learning through doing, she founded InterAlp, a program that sent American high school students abroad to live with local families in Greece and Kenya. She helped establish the theater at Athens College in Greece.

Along with her husband, John Summerskill, she founded LaFollette Vineyard in the Belle Mead section of Montgomery Township, New Jersey. They produced a Seyval blanc in the winery they built on their 30-acre (120,000 m²) vineyard just north of Princeton, New Jersey. Their LaFollette brand was a local favorite and the annual grape harvest was featured in the November 15, 1989, issue of Wine Spectator.

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