The Women Pioneers of the West Virginia State Legislature, 1923-1969

    Information concerning the history of the West Virginia state legislature is scarce, and, to this author's knowledge, no detailed, scholarly reports or published papers have been written on the women who have served there. As a result, much of the information reported here was obtained through old newspaper articles. Fortunately, some of the women featured here are still alive and graciously agreed to share with the author their experiences in the state legislature. Their insight, candor, and cooperation are greatly appreciated.

The Evolution of Women's Roles in West Virginia's Politics

    Women's formal involvement in West Virginia's state politics began at a time when women's abilities were greatly underestimated. Although some women legislators today assert that their gender is often not fully represented in the state legislature's most important leadership positions, it is clear that women's abilities are recognized and more readily used than in the past (Seller 1996). Their climb to equality as legislators is a colorful part of the state's political history, and, according to a majority of the women legislators interviewed. is one that is still not completely over.
    

    West Virginia's first formal woman's club was organized in 1892 (Conaway 1914). Women saw membership in a woman's club as an opportunity to provide constructive public service for both their local community and their state. In recognition of the growth of women's clubs in West Virginia, the national General Federation of Women's Clubs formed a state federation of women's clubs in West Virginia in 1904. Club women undertook projects such as establishing libraries, working for the inclusion of Home Economics in school curricula, conducting baby or tuberculosis clinics, buying milk for school children, and promoting visual and radio education (Conaway 1914).

    The State Federation of Women's Clubs became Involved in state politics in a formal way in 1906 when it created the position of chairman of legislation. At that time, the clubs made a concentrated effort to pass a juvenile court law, a child labor law and a public library law (authorizing municipalities to use taxes for the upkeep of libraries). The state federation also worked for the approval of a law providing for registration of births and deaths, a minimum wage law, a three day marriage law, a law to provide pre-marital health examinations, a law making parents equal guardians of their children, and the suffrage amendment (Conaway 1914). In recognition of their growing influence within the state, the national president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs attended the West Virginia women's clubs' 1910 convention and urged them to use their influence to stir public opinion to advance social and educational standards in West Virginia.

The Women's Suffrage Movement

    It was not until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 that women were acknowledged nationally as legitimate and full participants in the political arena. The women's suffrage movement had its formal launch at the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention of 1848. By the turn of the century, the women's suffrage movement had spread throughout the country and was particularly strong in the western states. Wyoming, for example, granted women the right to vote while it was still a territory. It insisted that women retain that right to vote when it was formally admitted to the union as a state in 1890:

    It is said that when members of Congress in Washington grumbled about this 'petticoat Provision,' the Wyoming legislators replied that they would stay out of the Union 100 years rather than come in without women's suffrage (Burns, Peltason, Cronin and Magleby 1993 119).

    The women's suffrage movement got its formal start in West Virginia following the formation of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association in 1895 (Jones end Yost 1922).' By 1914, the suffrage question dominated the agenda at the annual meeting of the State Federation of Women's Clubs (Conaway 1914). The women's suffrage movement, however, faced a great deal of opposition and endured numerous defeats before finally securing women the right to vote in West Virginia. In 1904, for example, Wheeling's voters were asked to approve a new city charter. They were also provided an opportunity to grant women the right to vote for Wheeling's municipal officials. Put before the voters on separate ballots, the women's suffrage amendment lost by 1,600 votes, with more votes cast on this issue than on the charter itself. In 1905, a state Senate resolution to submit to the state's voters a women's suffrage amendment to the state Constitution received just two votes. In 1906, a proposed state constitutional amendment to permit women to be appointed notaries public, clerks of county courts, probation officers, and members of boards of state institutions was defeated by the state's voters (44,168-45,044). In 1907, a resolution for a state constitutional amendment for women's suffrage was introduced in both the House and the Senate, but it failed in the House (26-48) and in the Senate (10-13). In 1913, a similar resolution did receive the required twothirds vote in the House (58-28), but failed to gain the required two-thirds vote in the Senate (16-14) (Jones and Yost 1922). In 1915, West Virginia's state legislature finally allowed the state's voters to determine whether women should have the right of suffrage. Senate Joint Resolution No. 5, adopted on February 28,1915, passed in the Senate (26-3), and in the House (76-8) (Acts of the Legislature 1915).

    Despite a vigorous campaign effort by both male and female volunteers, the support of both major political parties and their respective candidates for Governor, and the endorsement of numerous newspapers, West Virginia's voters rejected the proposed amendment by a wide margin (63,540161,607). Only three of the state's 55 counties voted in favor of the proposed amendment: Brooke, Hancock, and Wood (Harris 1917; Jones and Yost 1922).

    The fight for women's suffrage within the state continued, but its focus shifted somewhat following the U.S. Congress' approval on June 4,1919 of the proposed national Constitutional Amendment granting women the right to vote. The proposed Amendment required the ratification of 36 states to become effective. The state-by-state ratification process3was slow. Opposition was strongest in the southern states. Many southerners opposed the Amendment because it extended voting rights to all women, including African-American women. It also increased the likelihood of federal officials coming into their states to oversee their elections' process to ensure that women would not be denied their voting rights. This, in turn, would call attention to how African-Americans were being prevented from voting in violation of the 15th Amendment (Burns, Peltason, Cronin and Magleby 1993).

    West Virginia's Equal Suffrage Association formed a special Ratification Committee, chaired by Mrs. Ellis (Lenna) A. Yost, of Morgantown, to work for the Amendment's ratification by the state legislature (Jones and Yost 1922). The struggle to approve the Amendment was a major political battle, with neither side certain of victory. After canvassing the legislature in December, the Equal Suffrage Association thought that there were enough votes to ratify the Amendment and urged Governor John J. Cornwall (D) to call the legislature into a special session to vote on the Amendment as soon as possible. The Governor, however, who supported the Amendment, was not certain that the Senate would ratify it and decided to wait until February 27,1920 to call the legislature in for a special, two-day session. The ratification resolution was introduced on the 27th, and debated and voted on the following day. As expected, the Amendment was approved by the House (47-40), but the Senate was deadlocked, 14-14. State Senator Jesse A. Bloch (R-Ohio), who was in California at the time of the vote, telegraphed: "Just received notice of special session. Am in favor of ratification. Please arrange a pair for me" (a pair consists of a member voting for the measure and a member voting against the measure thereby canceling both of the votes out) (Jones and Yost 1922: 695). The Senate rejected his request on a 14-14 vote. If the request had been granted, the Amendment would have been ratified (14-13). The Secretary of State, Houston G. Young (R), called Bloch to inform him that his request for a pair had been denied, that the Amendment had failed because of the tie vote, and that a motion in the House to reconsider the vote had been "laid on the table" and could be called up at any time. This, in turn, began Senator Bloch's race across the country for Charleston (Jones and Yost 1922).

    The situation became tense while the Amendment's advocates waited for Bloch's arrival. Recognizing that Bloch would break the tie in the Senate, the Amendment's opponents contacted former state senator A. R. Montgomery (DLogan), who had resigned his seat eight months earlier and moved to Illinois. An opponent of the Amendment, Montgomery arrived in Charleston before Bloch and demanded that Governor Cornwell return his letter of resignation and allow him to vote on the measure. Montgomery argued that there was no documentary evidence that he had given up his state residency. The Governor refused Montgomery's request. The former senator then appeared in the Senate and offered to vote, but the Senate president, Dr. Charles A. Sinsel (A-Taylor ), one of the Amendment's supporters, ruled that he was no longer a member of the Senate and could not vote. The ruling was then sustained by a tie vote, and the case was referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections (Jones and Yost 1922).

    Senator Bloch arrived in Charleston on March 10, 1920 and took his seat in the Senate. Before a standing-roomonly audience gathered in the galleries and on the Senate floor, the Senate debated Montgomery's right to vote on the Amendment for several hours. He was finally not permitted to take his seat, and at 6 p.m. the ratification vote was finally taken and was approved, 16-13 (one of the original 14 no votes switched after realizing that Bloch's vote would change the outcome) (Jones and Yost 1922). West Virginia became the 34ih state to ratify the Amendment allowing women the right to vote. Seventeen days later, Tennessee became the 36ih state to ratify the Amendment.

From Suffrage to Office Holding

    Winning the right to vote was the single most important event legitimatizing women's participation in West Virginia politics. It not only allowed women to participate in the selection of their elected national, state, and local government officials, it also allowed them to hold elective office themselves. Article Four, Section Four of West Virginia's Constitution states that "No person, except citizens entitled to vote, shall be elected or appointed to any state, county or municipal office..." As a result, no women had ever served in the state legislature, or in any other elected office, in West Virginia prior to the Nineteenth Amendment's ratifications That changed quickly. For example, during the 1922 election Miss Hattie Stein (R) became the first West Virginia woman to run for a seat in the United States Congress; and Mrs. Izetta Jewel Brown (D), widow of a former congressman, became the first West Virginia woman to run for the United States Senate. Both of them lost in their respective primaries, but waged active campaigns ("Mrs. Brown May Try For Senate" 1922; "Sixty-five candidates seeking seat in House" 1922; "Making a Hot Campaign" 1922; "Congressmen Continue to Lead Opponents..." 1922). Brown addressed the issue of women running for public office in a letter she wrote to Stein:
 

The First Woman Legislators

    Mrs. Tom (Anna) Johnson Gates was the first of seven women to serve in the House of Delegates during the 1920s (see Table 1 in Appendix A). At this time, many women across the country were just starting to enter into political careers, often expanding on their activities with local political clubs and Parent Teacher Associations to run for the local school board, and then for the state legislature (Tristam 1992). Although the number of West Virginia women legislators increased somewhat over the next four decades (see Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 in Appendix A), the numbers remained fairly small, often with only one or two women serving in the state legislature at the same time. Also, more than half of the women (5/9 starting their legislative service during the 1930s, 7/7 during the 1940s, 4/10 during the 1950s, and 9/ 14 during the 1960s) were appointed to the legislature, typically to serve out the remainder of the legislative term of a deceased relative, usually their husband or father. Mrs. Hazel Hyre (D-Jackson), for example, became the first woman to serve in the state Senate when she was appointed to fill her late husband's unexpired term in 1934 ("History of Women" 1994). It was not until 1966 that a woman (Betty Baker, D-Hardy) was elected to the state Senate (Tristam 1992).

    Prior to the 1960s, most of the women who served in the West Virginia state legislature did not remain in the legislature very long and generally did not have a significant impact on state policy. This article is about some of the exceptions. It is about some of the women who served in the state legislature and made a difference.

Anna Johnson Gates: The First Woman State
Legislator in West Virginia
 

Mrs. Tom (Anna) Johnson Gates broke through the gender barrier to become West Virginia's first woman state legislator. A native of East Bank, Kanawha County, she was elected to represent Kanawha County in the House of Delegates in 1922. She attended the Kanawha County public school system and the Montgomery Preparatory School. She was an active member of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs and Charleston's Business and Professional Women's Club. She was also an experienced business woman, having served as Secretary to Charleston's Board of Affairs and Manager of the Gates Place Apartments on Broad Street. She was also very active in local politics, serving as Chairman of Women's Democratic Executive Committee of Kanawha County and election registrar ("Ray tells of Qualifications of Candidates" 1922; Harris 1924)

 
    In late August 1921, several members of the Democratic party banded together at a Democratic convention and encouraged her to run for a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates. She did not make up her mind until the final day to register for the primary ("Friends of Mrs. Gates Deny She Officiated as Registrar" 1922).

    Her campaign was anything but dull. Her opponents accused her of violating state election laws by continuing to hold her position as election registrar while also running for the legislature. Her friends and allies argued that all the negative campaigning was just a "Republican smear tactic," pointing out that she had resigned as election registrar the same day she filed for candidacy ("Friends of Mrs. Gates Deny She Officiated as Registrar" 1922).

    Gates received the fifth highest number of votes (16,568) among the 18 candidates running for Kanawha County's six legislative seats (six Democrats, six Republicans and six Socialists ran in the election; all six Democrats were elected) (Harris 1924). Following her election, the Charleston Gazette's editors wrote:
 

    In addition to being the first women elected to West Virginia's state legislature, Gates was also the first to serve in a leadership capacity. During her only term in the House of Delegates, she was appointed Chairperson of the Committee on Arts, Science and General Improvements. Although this Committee was not considered one of the most important ones in the state legislature, her appointment as Chair was quite an achievement in the then male-dominated world of state politics.

Minnie Buckingham Harper: The First African-American Woman State Legislator

    Mrs. Minnie Buckingham Harper (R-McDowell) has the distinction of being the first African-American woman state legislator in the United States. She was appointed on January 10, 1928 to the House of Delegates by Governor Howard Gore (R) to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband, E. Howard Harper ("History of Women" 1994). A homemaker, she was born in Winfield on May 15, 1886 and resided in Keystone. She did not run in the state legislative elections held later that year.

    Some may find it surprising that West Virginia, a state that has never had a disproportionately large number of AfricanAmericans, would hold the honor of having the first AfricanAmerican woman state legislator in the United States. During the early part of this century the southern half of the state, and McDowell County in particular, attracted a relatively large number of African-Americans from surrounding states who were looking for work in the coal mines. Although the work was hazardous and hard, the pay was relatively good, especially given the limited career alternatives available to African-American men. By 1920, the state's African-American population had increased to almost 86,000. McDowell County, in particular, had became known as a place where African-Americans could achieve considerable social mobility in an otherwise segregated society (McGehee 1994).

Hazel Edna Hyre: "l am interested in it all"
 

In 1934, Hazel Edna Hyre (D-Jackson) was the first woman to hold a seat in the West Virginia state Senate. A resident of Ripley, she was appointed by Governor Herman G. Kump (D) on March 12,1934 to the Senate to fill the vacancy created by her husband's death. Her husband, Kenna K. Hyre, a leading attorney in Jackson County, died of complications from an appendectomy ("Senator Kenna K. Hyre Passes Away" 1934). She did not run in the state Senate elections held in 1936.

 
    The local paper in Ripley described Hyre's first day in the Senate in great detail. She entered the Senate chamber for the first time while it was conducting business, and was escorted to the front of the chamber by her colleagues from Mason and Pleasants counties. Dressed in black, she was sworn in and assumed the seat previously occupied by her deceased husband. She flashed a smile when the Senators welcomed their first woman colleague with a "burst of applause." She said, "I regret, of course, the circumstances under which I am coming here, but I feel it is a great honor." The newspaper reported that politics and legislation were new to her. Asked if she was interested in any special kind of legislation, she replied, "l am interested in it all" ("Mrs. Kenna K. Hyre First Woman Member of Senate" 1934: 1).

    Along with holding the distinction of being the first woman to serve in the state Senate, Hyre was also the first female school teacher to serve in the legislature. She had previously worked as a school teacher in Mason County and resigned upon moving to Ripley with her husband. She was born on July 9,1896 in Ten Mile and was active in the Ripley community as a member of the American Legion Auxiliary and Ripley Woman's Club (Lively 1934).

Nell.W.Walker:"Pistol Nell"
 

Nell Walker (D-Fayette) was elected to the House of Delegates in 1936 and has the distinction of being the longest serving female legislator, with 22 years of legislative service (Myers 1962). She was the only woman elected to the state legislature during the 1940s (the others were appointed).      She was born on February 7, 1889 in Sewell, and attended New River State College and Columbia University. She was a Vice President and Assistant Cashier for The Winona National Bank in Fayette County (Lively 1937). Even though she was described as a "frail and gentle little woman," she acquired the nickname "Pistol Nell" after helping to disarm a robber at her bank ("History of Women" 1994). The story goes that Walker lived through three bank holdups. One of the robberies took place while she was the only person in the bank. During another robbery, the robber pointed a gun at a male bank official. Walker slid a pistol along the counter to the official who shot, wounded, and captured the robber ("Funeral For Mrs. Nell Walker Set Saturday In Winona Home" 1962).

 
    In addition to her years as a banker, Walker served as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross in France during World War I. She was also the Associate Chairman of the Fayette County Democratic Executive Committee and a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee ("Funeral For Mrs. Nell Walker Set Saturday In Winona Home" 1962).In 1955, after serving 18 years in the legislature, she was appointed state Banking Commissioner by Governor William C. Marland (D). She returned to the legislature in 1959, and died while in office in 1962 (Myers 1962).

    As an indication of her colleagues' respect for her many years of service, the House of Delegates presented her a white orchid on her birthday in 1962, her last year in the legislature. Delegate Earl Vickers (D-Fayette) praised Walker at the presentation ceremony for "her devotion to service" and her "personal integrity' ("Del. Nell Walker Feted by House" 1962).

    Although Walker was known as a loyal Democrat, her willingness to fight for what she believed in was evidenced during her final year in the legislature when she defied the Democratic leadership by opposing Governor Barron's (D) proposal to extend the recently increased consumer sales tax rate a second time. She argued that "the party had promised the increase would be allowed to expire and should keep its promise" ("Funeral For Mrs. Nell Walker Set Saturday In Winona Home" 1962: 1 A). She also tried, but failed, to sidetrack the Barron Administration's efforts to provide funding to transport coal by pipeline and to reduce the number of attaches employed by the House for the 1962 session.

Elizabeth Simpson Drewry:"No Body Ever Succeeded Falling By The Wayside"
 

Elizabeth Simpson Drewry (D-McDowell) became the second African-American woman to serve in the West Virginia state legislature following her election in 1950. She was, and remains, the only African-American woman to be elected to the state legislature.         Drewry was born in Motley, Virginia. Married as a teenager, and a mother at age 14, she was educated in McDowell County's public schools and went on attend Wilberforce University and the University of Cincinnati before graduating from Bluefield State College. She then taught for 28 years at Northfork East Grade School. She was considered an outstanding teacher, and scored a record 99 on a statewide teacher's test (McGehee 1994).

 
    She reportedly decided to run for the House of Delegates in 1950 after discoving the large salary differences between white and black teachers. Although she ran as a Democrat, there is evidence to suggest that in her younger years she was a Republican. In an August 12,1934 letter to her daughter, Lucille, she wrote: "The outlook for the Republicans seems good. About 22,000 more Republicans voted than Democrats. We expect a sweep this fall.... Now we only have to fight the Dems this fall" (Drewry collection 1934).Then, in a November 1935 letter to Lucille, she wrote:
 

    She ran for a seat in the House of Delegates twice before finally winning in 1950. She was subsequently re-elected six times, serving from 1951 to 1964. However, there is evidence to suggest that she may have also won the 1948 election. After an apparent victory, a recount of the votes resulted in a 36-vote victory for another Democratic candidate. She alleged fraud and took her argument first to the lower court, which ruled against her, and then to the state Supreme Court. It sided with the lower court (McGehee 1994).

    McDowell County's African-American community was very supportive of her candidacy. For example, C.F. Hopson, M.D., wrote the following to her on October 27, 1950:
 

    Elizabeth Drewry's first year in office was marked by controversy and intrigue. In 1951, she accused 1. J. K. Wells, the State Superintendent of Negro Education, of promising her $1,000 or a trip to Europe if she would help kill a bill in committee. She immediately reported the bribe offer to the Sergeant at Arms and the local press. Practically overnight, she became a national heroine for refusing to take the bribe and exposing the offer ("History of Women" 1994).

    Drewry was an active Delegate, even in her first year in the legislature, introducing several major bills, including the Fair Employment Practices bill and a bill to provide compensation to the victims of silicosis (a lung disorder affecting many coal miners, it is characterized by a chronic shortness of breath and is caused by long-term inhalation of silica dust) ("History of Women" 1994).

    In 1955, she sponsored a resolution, subsequently adopted by the legislature, to send to the state's voters a state constitutional Amendment allowing women to serve on juries. Up until that time, paupers, vagabonds, idiots, lunatics, habitual drunkards, persons convicted of infamous crimes, and women were excluded from jury duty. One of the main arguments presented against allowing women to serve on juries was the lack of female restrooms in county courthouses ("History of Women" 1994). On November 6, 1956, thirty-six years after women were given the right to vote, the state's voters gave West Virginia's women the right to sit on a jury (327,113-202,002) (Holmes 1992). West Virginia was the last state to provide this right to women ("History of Women" 1994).

    Drewry remained a strong advocate for teachers and school funding throughout her legislative career, and by the 1960s had fully embraced the Democratic party's ideals. In a speech on September 18, 1960, she declared:

    We have known for ages that the Republican party is the party of the rich and big monopolies so the Negro may not expect any thing in his favor from them. So why do people support them? The time has come for the working men and women to stand by the party that stands by them (Drewry collection 1960).

    While campaigning for her eighth consecutive term in the House of Delegates in 1964, Drewry became so ill that she reluctantly resigned her seat in the legislature and retired from political life. She died on September 24, 1979 at the age of 86 (McGehee 1994). She was the first and still is the only African-American woman elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates.

Betty H. Baker: "I'm just one of the boys"
 

Betty H. Baker (D-Hardy) was appointed to the Senate on January 11,1965 to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Donald Baker, a member of the House of Delegates who had just won the Senate seat. After deciding that she could do the job and enjoyed being a Senator, she decided to run in the special election held in 1966 to fill the remainder of the seat's four-year term. She won the general election (13,543-11,154) to become the first woman ever elected to theWestVirginia state Senate (Myers 1 966;Tristam 1992).

 
    Baker was born on September 18,1919 in Thomas. After graduating from the local public school system, she enrolled at West Virginia University. An exceptionally gifted student,she was selected to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa (the nation's most prestigious scholastic honor society). She also held the distinction of being the first woman to serve as the President of West Virginia University's student body. She was elected Vice-President, but the President entered the service and she assumed his duties. After graduation, she worked as Deputy County Clerk of Grant County Court in Petersburg, and then became what she termed a "domestic engineer." In an interview with the author, she commented: "Back then, when you had four children your main duty was to stay home and rear children" (Baker 1996).

    She decided to run for the remainder of her husband's unexpired term because her four children had reached thei' teenage years, and a relative volunteered to help take care of her children while she served in the legislature.

    Her campaign was helped by the support and advice o Ralph J. Bean, former President of the state Senate (D Hardy). She was also able to fund most of her campaigne costs herself, accepting only a $1,000 donation from a group of personal friends.

    Baker indicated in an interview that she thought that her Senate colleagues were not too sure of her at the beginning of her service in the Senate. She remembered that the first time she walked into a meeting of the Senate's Democratic party caucus, all the men got to their feet. She said to them, "Look boys, I'll be here the whole session and this is silly. You don't have to stand for me, I'm just one of the boys" (Baker 1996).

    Baker did not sponsor many bills in the Senate. During her first year in the Senate, she purposely "sat with my ears open and my mouth shut. It was a learning experience" (Bake' 1996). She did, however, earn the respect of her fellow Senators by studying the content of bills, and working hard in Committee. During her third year in the Senate, Senate President Howard W. Carson (D-Fayette) appointed her Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

    Baker remembered using her gender to foster more expeditious floor debate in the Senate. One of her Senate colleagues had a tendency, as she put it in an interview, to gel "windy" at times, speaking endlessly. Whenever this occurred, the other members of the Senate would just"look at her.' She would then stand, and the offending Senator, being a true gentleman, would yield the floor to her. She would move the previous question (which would immediately bring the bill up for a vote and end the debate) (Baker 1996).

    Baker's proudest legislative accomplishment was her hare work to help get the junior drivers licensing bill passed. Spon sored by a Senator whose 16-year-old son was killed in c car wreck, it placed restrictions on those getting their driver license at 16 years of age. Baker remembered that John E Carrigan (A-Marshall), the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, said upon its passage, "Never underestimate the power of a woman" (Baker 1996).

    Baker ran for reelection once her term was up in 1966 but lost in the general election by just 134 votes. She was disappointed, but recognized that Republican gubernatoriE candidate Arch Moore's victory that year also swept a large' number of Republicans into office. As she put it:

    Those of us in the county told the state Democratic party that we needed their help with the election. But because we had always been a Democratic district, they were not concerned and ignored our request (Baker 1996).

Beatrice "Jackie" Neubert Withrow: "A Rose Among the Thorns"
 

Jackie Neubert Withrow (D-Raleigh) was born in Mabscott and attended Beckley public schools. After graduation, she became very active in the Raleigh County Democratic party, serving as President of the Raleigh County Young Democrats and a member of the Raleigh County Democratic Woman's Club. A real estate agent, she was very involved with several business, government, and civic associations, including the Raleigh County Park Board, Business and Professional Woman's Club of Beckley, Beckley Child Care Auxiliary, and her church.

 

    She decided to run for the House of Delegates In 1960 after visiting several state mental hospitals. She felt that the patients deserved better facilities and that the only way they would get the help they deserved was through politics (Myers 1961; Higginbotham 1974; Withrow 1996). She explained her decision to enter politics in an interview with the author:

    We would go through the wards, some of them, they wouldn't allow us to go through all of them. It made me feel so bad. Those people didn't have anyone to speak for them. Now the help was fine - naturally it was understaffed. ....And then ...we went, the group of us, to visit the House of Delegates and the Senate in Charleston. And we sat there - and not one time did anyone say anything about these people that could not speak for themselves. And that bothered me... So, I came home, and I talked with my husband, and I talked with my parents, and I talked with my minister, and they suggested ...'Well if you want to do anything, why don't you run for the Legislature?' So, we pondered it, and I talked to several people, and remind you now, that a woman had never run for public office in Raleigh County. And, l thought, well, it would be an adventure, and it would be something, and my parents were very politically minded. My mother worked in the elections. We were brought up that way. So I thought, well, why not? (Withrow 1996).

    Withrow was the only woman among the 25 candidates that entered the Raleigh County House of Delegates' Democratic primary (Withrow 1996). Since only the top four vote getters would win the party's nomination, she knew that she had a lot of work to do. At the outset of her campaign, she recalled that her mother, Willie Lee (Flanagan) Neubert, gave her some sound political advice:
 

    Withrow was a very active and respected legislator. She takes the most pride in her work to pass legislation revising the state's mental health care facilities and requiring PKU tests (for mental retardation in children), for cosponsoring the first bill to provide compensation to coal miners suffering from black lung disease, and for carrying on a crusade started years earlier by Elizabeth Drewry (Withrow 1996).

    Drewry had tried unsuccessfully for years to get legislation passed to protect the black bear, West Virginia's state animal. Withrow and Delegate Ethel "Midge" Crandall (DFayette) cosponsored legislation in 1969 to protect the black bear. They faced strong opposition from bear hunters and farmers who argued that the bears had to be shot because they were killing their farm animals. Withrow and Crandall countered with pictures to prove that most of the farm animals were being killed by wolves, not black bears. On the day the bill was to be voted on by the full House, Withrow and Crandall walked into the House chambers and noticed a little stuffed black bear on the Speaker's podium. They also noticed a few others on other desks in the chamber. Before the bill was voted on, Crandall addressed the House and then Withrow spoke on behalf of the bill. She recalled:
 

Concluding Remarks

    Hopefully, this brief introduction into the lives and accom- plishments of these seven women legislators will serve as a reminder that women have always played an active and im- portant role in our state's political history. These women deserve to be remembered, not just for what they did and for the fact that they were the first to do it, but because their stories are representative of the efforts undertaken by thou- sands of West Virginia women over the years who have served in public office, participated in politics, or worked with a civic or educational organization to help improve the lives of West Virginia's people.

    A companion article examining the lives and accomplish- ments of several women who have served in the state legislature since the 1960s is currently underway, and will ap- pear, along with this article, in a monograph that will be pub- lished later this year by the Institute for Public Affairs at West Virginia University.

Endnotes

I. The state association became the League of Women Voters on September 30, 1920.

2. It was not until 1994 that West Virginia's state constitution was amended to remove language referring to "male voters" (House Joint Resolution 13, adopted March 11,1994, Regular Session, West Virginia Legislature).

3. Colorado elected the first woman state legislator to the Colorado state House in 1894. By the time the 1 gth Amend- ment was ratified in 1920, 69 women had served in the state legislatures of 12 states (Cox 1994).

References

Acts of the Legislature of West Virginia Regular and Extraordinary Sessions. 1915.
    Charleston, WV: Tribune Printing Company.

Acts of the Legislature of West Virginia Regular and Extraordinary Sessions. 1923.
    Charleston, West Virginia.

Baker, Betty H.1996. Former member of the West Virginia state legislature. Telephone interview
    with the author. Elkview, West Virginia. September 27.

Burns, James M., J. W. Peltason, Thomas E. Cronin and David B. Magleby. 1993. Government
    By The People. 1 5th Edition. Englewood, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Conaway, Rebecca Core.1914. A Study of the Origin, Organization, Work and Influence of
    Women's Clubs in West Virginia. Masters thesis, West Virginia University.

"Congressmen Continue to Lead Opponents By Enlarging Majorities... Mrs. Brown Still is
    Hopeful." 1922. The Charleston Daily Mail. November 9, 1.

Cox, Elizabeth M. 1994."Who Came First." State Legislatures (November): 12-19.

"Del. Nell Walker Feted by House." 1962. The State Sentinel. Fayetteville, West Virginia. March 7.

Drewry, Elizabeth Simpson. n.d. Collection of her personal papers. Bluefield, WV: Eastern
    Regional Coal Archives. Craft Memorial Library.

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