Born on November 1, 1888, in London England, Rhoda Muriel Ivimey came to America when she was three years old. After graduating from Morris High School, she entered Barnard College. There, she joined Alpha Phi and was known by her middle name. Her biological sister Ethel Marguerite Ivimey Langmuir was also a member of the chapter.
She took part in class plays and athletic competitions. In a Barnard publication, she said she expected to become a librarian.
She studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated in 1922. Clinical neurology and psychiatry were her specialties.
Johns Hopkins University, 1922 (She is in the New York listing)
In 1938, she and sister Ethel sailed on the Aquitania for a summer tour of England and Scotland. Around this time, she began spending time in Spencertown in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where she planned to retire. She was a member of the Austerlitz Grange and was active in the civic affairs of Spencertown.
Latimer County News Democrat, August 10, 1928
She helped found the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in 1941 and she also helped found the American Institute for Psychoanalysis. Ivimey served both organizations as an officer and spent her life as an active teacher and practitioner. In addition, she authored many academic papers.
Ivimey died on February 26, 1953, at New York Hospital after suffering a heart attack. At the time of her death, she was Associate Dean of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis. She lived at 829 Park Avenue in the Lenox Hill section of New York City near the 77th Street subway station. It was then a 12-story apartment building comprised of 46 apartments. It became a cooperative in 1957. Today the units start at about $3 million each and go up from there.
Ivimey’s estate was split between sister Ethel and brother Theodore. Its gross value was more than $83,000 and the net value was $77,690 – more than $900,000 in 2024 dollars.
In a memorial, Dr. Bella S. Van Bark wrote of Ivimey, “She had the grand capacity to get to the heart of the matter and present it in a forthright, simple, and brisk, down to earth manner. Combined with this was a real feeling for other people, tact, and sensitive perception.” Ivimey was also described as having a “fine sense of humor” and being an “indefatigable worker, who never spared herself, and gave generously of time, energy, thought, effort and human support.
