On 17 April, we commemorate the 132nd birthday of Hypatija Šliūpaitė, the youngest daughter of Jonas Šliūpas and Liudvika Malinauskaitė-Šliūpienė. Her parents named her after the renowned ancient Greek scholar and philosopher Hypatia. 

Hypatija was born in 1893 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, USA. That April night was so stormy that the wind tore off the church roof. Her family predicted she would live a life full of turmoil and unexpected turns — and so it came to be. Raised in America and still a student at Cornell University, she was taken to Europe by Martynas Yčas. Her life involved extensive travel and extraordinary, moving experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1916, she married Martynas Yčas (1885–1941), a Lithuanian lawyer and politician, in New York. After their wedding, the couple left the United States and lived in Petrograd and Voronezh. Later, with their growing family — three daughters (including twins) and a son — they resided in Kaunas and at the Tirkiliškiai manor near the city.

In 1921, the Evangelical Reformed Church of Lithuania elected Hypatija Šliūpaitė-Yčienė as its curator — the first woman ever to hold this position in the church’s history. Alongside her husband, she founded and edited the Evangelical Reformed newspaper Mūsų žodis (“Our Word”) between 1922 and 1923.

The first Government of independent Lithuania appointed Martynas Yčas as Minister of Finance, Trade, and Industry, as well as acting Minister of Transport. His diplomatic duties took him across Europe, and his family often traveled with him. Hypatija thus had the opportunity to be present in Berlin, Paris, and at the Peace Conference, where U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and other international leaders were shaping Europe’s future. She also participated in key Lithuanian discussions held in Switzerland.

In 1928, following the death of Hypatija’s mother, Liudvika Malinauskaitė-Šliūpienė, in Kaunas, her father Jonas Šliūpas was left to live alone. Hypatija invited him to live with her and help raise and care for his grandchildren. However, Šliūpas — still an energetic man — did not see himself in the role of a grandfather. Instead, he secured a state pension and remarried, choosing as his second wife his housemaid from Palanga, Grasilda Grauslytė. This marriage shocked his children and relatives. Hypatija severed ties with her father, possibly because the Yčas family considered themselves part of the social elite and viewed the marriage to a servant as disgraceful. Adding to the tension was the fact that Grasilda and Hypatija were the same age — both born in 1893.

In 1940, the Yčas family emigrated to Brazil and later settled in the United States. After the death of her husband Martynas Yčas, Hypatija remarried — this time to Pijus Jonas Žiūrys. The couple lived in Cleveland, Ohio, for nearly 20 years until his death in 1962, which left her widowed a second time. Some years later, Hypatija moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to live with her daughter Evelyn Helena Alisa Yčaitė-Taggart (1923–2014). Hypatija Yčienė-Žiūrienė passed away in November 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Photos: Archive of Aušrininkas Dr. Jonas Šliūpas, Information Centre of the Šiauliai Academy, Vilnius University Library; Lithuanian Central State Archives; Mūsų sparnai, Lithuanian Evangelical Reformed journal, 1983, No. 54.