by Mary Ann Clements
This year (2020) marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote in the United States. It’s also the 150th anniversary of the first woman to vote in Utah. We know of at least one woman in Theodore Turley’s family who was excited for the prospect of voting. Mary Ann Turley Cook officially became a citizen of the United States in 1895. A couple of the newspapers noted that obtaining citizenship finally allowed her to own property in the state of California. The Los Angeles Times, however, reported that she was really looking forward to exercising her rights at the ballot box. The 1896 referendum to grant women’s suffrage in California ultimately failed, so Mary Ann didn’t get a chance to vote. Women’s suffrage was finally granted in the state in 1911, six years after Mary Ann’s death. Image below from Newspapers dot com. (The Los Angeles Times, Sunday 29 Sep 1895, page 10)
Ann's Stories 