Augusta Voted!

Augusta Peters Albert

March 26, 1839 - November 24, 1925

I am a member of the League of Women Voters and inspired by the League's history of women-led activism and its mission of empowering voters and defending democracy. You may know that the League was formed 100 years ago when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed and (most) women in the United States gained the right to vote.

In this 100th anniversary year of the League's founding and the passage of the 19th amendment, there are many good documentaries and stories out about the 72 year struggle to gain to the right to vote for women - history that I was never taught in school. I've found such inspiration in that history and am awestruck by the determination, perseverance, and sacrifice made by those generations of women that came before me. These stories have made me wonder about women in my family. What did they think? What did they do? How were they affected?

1920 was the year that my mother was born. Her mother, Christine Repschleger, was 33 when she gave birth to my mom on November 1, 1920. The election that year - the first time women had the right to vote in a presidential election - was November 2, 1920. My guess is that voting was the last thing on Christine's mind that day.

My paternal grandmother, Bertha Rugen Johnston, was 22 that year, and on election day that November was tending to my dad, who was a little more than eight months old. Little Leroy was probably crawling, teething, and capturing everyone's hearts as the precious first-born that he was. I bet that voting was not on the top of her list at that time either.

But what about the generations of women before them who had the right to vote for the first time that year? Questions about voting, especially first-time voting, are on my list of "wish I had asked" when my grandmothers were alive. Because I did not ask, I can only wonder.

My great-grandmothers were in their fifties or sixties by that time, and the three of my great-grandmothers who were still living were in their 80's. Had they been following the suffragette's fight to gain the vote, cheering them on along the way? Were they more aligned with the "antis" who opposed the effort in the belief that voting would dirty-up women's minds with thoughts of politics - that their influence was best obtained via "pillow talk" with their man? Or were they indifferent - too busy with the chores of daily life, taking care of their big families?

I know that I will never be more than speculate on these questions. But I recently stumbled on a wonderful nugget of information about voting in Augusta Peters Albert's obituary in The Daily Herald, Arlington, Illinois' newspaper. Augusta Albert Peters was my Grandma Johnston's maternal grandmother and Henrietta (Etta) Peters Rugen's mother. That makes her my great-great grandmother. Augusta was born in 1837 in Prussia and immigrated when she was 19 years old with her parents and 5 siblings from Hamburg to New York on the ship Harmonia. Her family first settled in Jefferson, Illinois, where she met and married Christian Albert in 1859. In 1862, after the birth of three daughters - Henrietta, Bertha and Anna - Augusta, Christian, and their young daughters moved to Northfield, Illinois, settling on the Deerlove Farm on Milwaukee Avenue. After her husband's death in 1891, Augusta lived with her daughter Anna in that same home until her death in 1925 when she was 88 years old.

Here is the part of her obituary that made me smile.

With the exception of failing eye sight, Mrs. Albert had enjoyed fairly good health for the late years of her life. She was much interested in her church and took the active interest in politics by casting her vote at every election.

Every election? She passed away in 1925! Was that just two elections - 1920, when Republican Senator Warren G. Harding from Ohio defeated Democratic Governor James M. Cox of Ohio (Ohio vs. Ohio - that must have been interesting), and 1924, when Calvin Coolidge, Harding's Vice-President who assumed the presidency after Harding's death, won his first elected term?

After a bit of research, I learned that Illinois was the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But voting for women in Illinois came earlier than 1920. Thanks to the efforts of super-women Jane Addams and Grace Wilbur Trout, leaders of the Chicago Political Equality League, Illinois had already granted women limited voting rights in 1913, the first state east of the Mississippi to do so. Between 1913 and 1920, women in Illinois could vote in local elections and for president, but not for state and federal legislators.

So my amazing great-great grandmother Augusta had been able to vote in local elections for twelve years before her death, and participated in three - not two - presidential elections, including the 1916 election where incumbent Woodrow Wilson was opposed by Republican Charles Evans Hughes. I wonder who she chose!

My mother, like many women, was a voter, but she did not do her own thinking on who to choose. Instead, she voted the way Dad voted. But my gg-grandmother Augusta was a widow by the time she could vote, so did not have a husband's instructions to follow. Of course, she had sons and son-in-laws. But my hunch is that gg-grandmother Augusta was a spunky woman with a mind of her own, and decided on her own. Go gg-grandmother!

I love finding these tidbits of information that bring some life to the names and photos of our family's past. And I really love when I find a thread of connection that ties me to past generations. How great it is that the authors of Augusta's obituary thought to include her interest in politics and dedication to voting. Those few words speak volumes to me about who she was and how she lived. If she had been able, I bet that she too would have been a member of the League of Women Voters. I am honored to hold that place for her now, 100 years later.