Ellen Parker Love, a 1927 graduate of Vassar, who on June 6, 1934, in Manhattan, married Charles Beckinton Atkin.
Barbara Hope Love, who on June 9, 1930, in Manhattan, married William Adair Hurt. They later divorced.
Andrew Jackson Love, Jr., who attended the Horace Mann School until around 1937, then transferred to the Mount Herman School in Northfield, Massachusetts – the sister school of his mother's alma mater – graduating around 1930 studied pre-med at the University of Wisconsin for two years, then went on to become an acclaimed jazz vocalist – notably as founder of the jazz trio, the Tune Twisters, which recorded, around 1939, a nationally popular jingle for Pepsi, an innovation in broadcast advertising and considered one of the first of its kind.
Siblings
Elizabeth "Libby" N. Hemings married Walter Gilbert Alexander, MD, on May 3, 1904, in Boston. They later divorced. Elizabeth died in an asylum. Records reflect that she was clinically insane.
Frederick John Hemmings '', earned a bachelor's degree chemistry from MIT in 1897.
Robert Williamson Hemmings, Jr., was an artist who studies in art included winning, in 1903, a bronze medal and scholarship from the Eric Pape School of Art for a sketch in black and white. He graduated June 26, 1899, from the Sherwin School's 26th class, a high school for African Americans in Roxbury.
Passing as white
Like some Black Americans at the time, Anita Hemmings and her husband passed as white for socioeconomic benefit. They did not inform their children of their racial heritage.
Anita Hemmings attended preparation school at Girls' High School in Boston and Northfield, where she had been roommates with Elizabeth Baker, who, on September 23, 1896, married William Henry Lewis. Fulfilling a childhood dream, Anita went on to attend Vassar, and earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1897. She apparently attended as a white, something that was not known until her graduation, when a Boston newspaper – commenting on the graduation of an African American, Fred J. Hemmings, from MIT – stated that he had a sister at Vassar. Later, rumors circulated that she should have been valedictorian, but they were false. Some considered Anita the most attractive woman in her class; it was whispered that she had 'Indian blood' which accounted for her dark-hued complexion and straight black hair. She sang soprano in the glee club and was the featured soloist at the local churches in Poughkeepsie. In 1997, Vassar African-American studies students petitioned college president Frances D. Fergusson to recognize Anita Hemmings at that year's centennial celebration. Writing about it in Vassar Quarterly'', Olivia Mancini, a local journalist, argued: "It brought graduation and presence to a level of honor that it should have had a hundred years ago." Vassar has acknowledged Anita Hemmings as the first African American to graduate the college, but for almost all of her college career, she 'passed' as white. Today, she would be listed as multiracial, or other ethnic designation. Then, she was one of the class of African Americans. The term may also include Americans of mixed-race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially
In popular culture
In November 2017, it was announced that Zendaya will produce and star in a biopic of Hemmings' life titled A White Lie, based on the 2016 novel The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe. Reese Witherspoon will also produce the project and Monica Beletsky will write the script. TriStar Pictures will distribute the film.
