Ena Veronica Lindner Swain, author, Johnson House historian, dies at 88

Ena Veronica Lindner Swain, 88, of Philadelphia, an author, community organizer, and longtime board member and historian at the Johnson House Historic Site in Germantown, died Friday, March 27, of heart complications at Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Mrs. Swain was born in Philadelphia to Stanley Barrett Lindner and Adeline Gardiner Lindner, Jamaican immigrants who came to the United States to work with the political activist Marcus Garvey. The third of four children, she grew up in South Philadelphia and graduated from South Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1949.

In 1951, she married William Arch Swain Sr., who was among the first African Americans allowed to use the Allied Printing Trades Council union label. They lived in Germantown and were wed for 66 years until Mr. Swain’s death in 2017.

Early in her career, Mrs. Swain became the first African American bookkeeper and accountant at the C. Schmidt & Sons Inc. brewery, said daughter Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum. She later left to rear her four children.

In 1977, Mrs. Swain and her husband opened Swain’s Printing & Accounting on Germantown Avenue. It became a popular place to have event books and fliers printed. Mrs. Swain started her own accounting practice, while her husband completed printing jobs at night.

As her children got older, Mrs. Swain began taking classes at Temple University. A history class with Emma Lapsansky-Werner, now a professor emeritus at Haverford College, motivated her to start scholarly research, and she began a 50-year quest to study the abolition movement in Germantown.

Her research culminated in a 2018 book, The Evolution of Abolitionism in Germantown and Its Environs. During a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania last year, she detailed the thesis of her book: The Quakers did not act alone in creating the 1688 “First Protest Against Slavery."

Mrs. Swain said the protest document was “a collaborative effort by Mennonites, Pietists, some Quakers, Lutherans, Huguenots, and the Reformed." Further, she told the audience, it actually reprimanded “the Quakers for their trafficking in slaves.… The history of Germantown has been sanitized, quite literally, ‘whitewashed,’ over these many years.”

Cornelia Swinson, executive director of the Johnson House, said Mrs. Swain was a board member for 17 years. After stepping down over a year ago, she continued to visit the historic house and make herself available if Swinson had questions.

In 2017, Johnson House honored Mrs. Swain with an “Unsung Hero” award.

“She had a lot of knowledge about the abolition movement, and she did walking tours. She was unassuming, but she was very confident in her knowledge," Swinson said.

While Mrs. Swain loved history, Swinson added, "she was very much in love with her family and her husband.”

Mrs. Swain also served on the advisory council for Mallery Recreation Center, now Daniel E. Rumph II Recreation Center, where she fought for better facilities in the 1970s.

Mrs. Swain met with Mayor Frank L. Rizzo and demanded that a new gym be built so children could use it all year. She was known as the kind of person who got things done, Swinson said.

“She was resolute," Swinson said. "She didn’t mind speaking up. But she wasn’t loud. She was always a lady, a beautiful lady.”

Mrs. Swain loved attending Christ Church in Old City and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Germantown. She was an excellent cook, her family said. She was especially known for her turkey, ribs, potato and macaroni salads, and sweet potato pies and chocolate cake.

She and her husband owned a vacation house in Wildwood, and the family enjoyed spending summers there.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Swain is survived by daughter Gail Swain Harrison; sons William A. Swain Jr. and Brian Anthony Swain; 12 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; one great-great-grandchild; and a sister.

A Celebration of Life will be held in the future.