Viola Lennon, Visionary Co-founder of La Leche League International, Passes Away at Age 86

Janurary 23, 2010

In 1956 Viola Brennan Lennon attended a meeting at the home of Mary White, partially out of her curiosity for a new term at the time, "mothering". Her decision to attend would become an integral move in the origination of a new organization; one whose incalculable benefits have profoundly influenced the lives of countless women across the globe. Sometimes known as "the quiet revolution", Lennon's role in the founding of La Lache League International will forever make her one of the great visionaries of our time.

In a day when artificial infant feeding was experiencing a dramatic rise, Lennon and her companions dared to speak out about the benefits of breastfeeding, and the importance of the maternal-infant bond that stems from it. Lennon's efforts helped give rise, not just to an organization for breastfeeding mothers, but to a source of continual courage and insight. For over 50 years Lennon worked to continue this organization; one of the largest networks of women ever imagined. 

Viola Lennon was born in 1923 in Chicago, IL. She married William Lennon in 1951 and birthed and breastfed ten children. In her own words of wisdom, "I feel that breastfeeding gives the mother a vision of what a human person is. Personally, it led me to self-discovery and to a greater appreciation of the full humanity of the babies who were entrusted to me. Each woman needs to trust her own instincts, her own feelings, and her own sense of what will work for her with each baby.”

Viola Lennon died on January 22, 2010, she was 86. She will be remembered with love.