On Sunday, November 10, the Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society sponsored an event about Women’s Suffrage featuring Nancy Lowden, manager of historical programs at Maymont in Richmond.
On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment of the Constitution gave women the right to vote. The first women to vote in Middlesex County in Saluda District were Lucy Blakey Royal, Gay Wright, Emma Lee Ball, Mary Wright Blackwell, Eleanor Ball Kipps, Blanche H. Saunders, Virginia McCandlish Evans, Bessie Mae Brown, Susie D. Lawson, F.E. Bristow, Flossie B. Eastman, Annie H. Puller, Sarah O. Tucker, Nellie S. Smith, Sadie L. Segar, Hattie S. Segar, Bessie M. Brown, Emma L. Ball, Lucy E. Blakey, Lena Blakey, Lottie L. Davis, Winnie D. Dietz, Mary Grinels, Estelle Walker, Gay W. Wright, Lillian B. Wallace, Gladys B. Kerr, Ida M. Bristow, Fannie P. Woodward, Fannie B. Bristow, Julia P. Anderson, Mrs. Ray Callis, Florence E. Gray, Lillian P. Gray, Mrs. Temple B. Hoskins, Nannie M. McCandlish, Bernice E. Neale, Lucy W. Pitts, Ella M. Stubbs, Fannie R. Smither, Eugenia Shackelford, Annie C. Smith, Lucy G. Anderton, Virginia M. Vaiden, Blanche S. Webb, Cornelia E. Bristow, Margaret H. Barnhardt, Mary E. Davis, Irma Davis, Mamie A. Edwards, Louise Harwood, Sally Harwood, Mary P. Harwood, Lottie C. Jones, Maude S. Lee, Lucille Moore, Martha E. Owen, M.A. Pratt, and Lena S. Segar.
The first women to vote in Pinetop District were Mrs. Jessie R. Pitt, Mrs. Marion M. Barrick, Mary Burnes Daniel, Mary Margaret Daniel, Eudora W. Daniel, Annie G. Walton, Ida B. Ferneyhough, Mattie Major Hart, Annie McNamara Healy, Susie Duval Lawson, Nannie H.W. Segar, Grace Vaden Bennett, Fannie R. Barrick, Bettie W. French, Lillian B. Mercer, Mrs. Nelson Howard McNamara, Elizabeth Pitt, Lucy Hall Revere, Mary W. Revere, Nellie L. Stiff, Alice Stiff, Mrs. Clinton W. Stiff, Fannie A. Stiff, and Laura W. Woodland.
Unfortunately, a list of first women voters in Jamaica District has not been found.
The above information came from “Signatures in Time,” page 379.
