My Family and the Ratification of the 19th Amendment

Great-grandma Minnie Ruston in the glasses, center.

On August 18, 1920 it was written into law that voting rights could not be denied based on sex. Suffragettes had been protesting for the right to vote for decades. An early Women’s Rights convention was held in Seneca Falls in 1848, seventy-two years before the amendment was ratified.

This photo is of an unknown group of women from around the 1920s. My 1x great-grandmother Minnie Ruston is facing the camera in the glasses in the center. She was the daughter of a prominent business owner, fire chief, and Mason, Hiram Wicker. I have not yet been able to identify these women. There are other photos of the white-haired woman in the back row with the black robes on, but I am uncertain who she is.

Suffragette white in 1917?

[It’s important to note, considering how long women had to fight for it, that many states responded by passing laws to limit the freedoms of black citizens, including voting rights. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that black women (and men) had the full and legal right to vote. That’s forty-five years after the Amendment.]

It made me wonder where my ancestors were in their lives in 1920. It was only 100 years ago and my female ancestors could not vote. I’ll never know what they thought about women’s rights to vote—I know that not all women were in support of it, though I have learned enough about some families to make some educated guesses. So I searched our archives for photos of my ancestors who were alive at the time, within a few years, and here they are:

My 1x great-grandparents Royal Levant Eaton and Hattie Eva Smith-Eaton were 47 and 38 years old with three children. My grandfather Mark Dutcher Eaton was 5 years old, the youngest in the second photograph. They were living in Auburn, NY where Roy was working as a prison guard.

Royal’s mother Theresa Cordelia Tenney-Eaton was 70 years old, living in Somerset, NY with her son Hubert and his family.

Hattie’s grandmother, my 3x great-grandmother Eliza Marsh Bird-Dutcher was 83 years old living in Somerset with her daughter Carrie and her family. Here she is, on the left, with her son-in-law's mother, Sophia Sears-Smith. Sophia died soon after this was taken, a decade before ratification.

Frank Ruston tucking his head. Either with his wife Minnie, or Minnie took the photo.

Minnie Wicker-Ruston and son Dickie and daughter Ruth, my grandma, around 1922.

Emma Whitcher-Wicker, front right, with sisters Ellen, Harriet, and Frances, l-r.

My grandmother Ruth Emma Ruston was 4 years old, living with my 1x great-grandparents Frank William Ruston and Minnie Estelle Wicker-Ruston in Lockport, NY. Frank and Minnie were 32 and 30 years old and he was employed as an accountant. Minnie’s mother Emma Angeline Whitcher-Wicker, 75, lived with them.

Frank’s parents Charles Evan Ruston and Ruth Ireland-Ruston, 73 and 59 years old, were both first generation immigrants living at their own home in Lockport.  He was still employed by the Harrison Manufacturing factory. (In my childhood it was the Harrison-Radiator factory.)

Robert George Art and Margaret Loretta Burke-Art were both 28 years old, living in Lockport, with two young daughters. He was working as a blacksmith.

Robert’s parents, my 2x great-grandparents, George Art and Katherine Pils-Art, 50 and 49 years old, were both employed by the wealthy Kenan family as their private gardener and housekeeper. Here Katherine is with other housekeepers, second one in from the right.

Margaret’s father, my 2x great-grandfather Frank Burke was 57, worked as the watchman for a city building in Lockport. He’s listed as married, not widowed, living with five of his children, though his wife Eliza Conners-Burke is not included on the census report. She would have been 54 at the time. I don't have any photos of them.

My 1x great-grandfather Harold Riddle, in the light suit, was 17 years old, living at home with my 2x great-grandparents Lafayette Riddle and Frances Ann Gillette-Riddle, 47 and 43 years old. With five of their six children in Newfane, NY.

Harold and Elsie in 1924 when they married.

My 1x great-grandmother Elsie Elizabeth Durant was 16, the last Durant child still at home. My 2x great-grandparents George Durant and Emma Louise Burnah-Durant, 51 and 53, lived in Lockport, NY where he worked at a Block Company. His father Albert died earlier that year in Vermont. His mother Rosella Lavalley-Durant, my 3x great-grandmother, 82 years old, was working as a housekeeper in Vermont.

Rosella Lavalley-Durant

I do not know what they thought but I know where they were and who their descendants became. I know my great-grandma Minnie was an avid photographer and these photos of this group of women survived all these decades later so they must have been important to her, and so they are important to me.

Same group of women with Minnie behind the camera.

COVID-19 Deaths Month 5: July

I spent the whole of the month isolating in a cottage with my parents. We all isolated for two weeks beforehand. Even though I usually only see them a couple of times a year, there was a tinge of mortality in the air that made those hugs sweeter, and each touch, each connection more meaningful.

Our month-long visit was a balm that I needed. Events occurred that made it fortuitous that I was present. But even as much as I needed the break it was mitigated by the sea of visitors without masks in the nearby park and shoreline. Each morning walk I ended up using my cane to lift up discarded (and mostly unused) masks. My faith in humanity is shaken.

I have started having nightmares about needing to be intubated again. I have damage from my previous intubation during my accident so I am at-risk for COVID-19 complications. I see every maskless face as a threat against my health.

I know that the virus is taking lives across all continents, not just in America, but my heart can only bear to keep my eyes on this land. The global numbers are disheartening. And if this is going to be a long haul, we need to take care of ourselves. We need to care for each other better.

 

But here’s the other thing I noticed. I found respite in my time in nature. I saw evidence of nature blooming in our absence. There were more kinds of birds than I have seen at that shore in 20 years, more wild patches of flowers. It was breathtaking. It gave me hope for the world, in spite of humanity.

 

The basic news still applies. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Six feet apart. Isolate.

I check the total dead each day. I have a list of numbers. Every night at midnight I light my ancestor altar. I call on those who weathered plagues and mysterious illnesses that swept through villages and cities. I call on my foremothers and fathers who lost loved ones, and those who lost their own lives in such times. I ask them to guide the dead. I ask them to watch over the living. I ask them to wrap the world in some measure of peace.

And I chant the number of souls who died that day. I chant it seven times. I wish them ease. I wish them peace. I sometimes cry for their families, for the ones who died alone. Especially for the ones who died alone. Viruses don't care about human need. I try to remember that.

It's a simple ritual. It keeps me mindful of what is happening outside of my own isolation.

 

This month's death toll declined! It feels like we have a bit of breathing room. For as disgusting as the carelessly discarded masks are, we must be doing some things right.

 

 

In July, we lost twenty-three thousand eight-hundred and fifty-one Americans.

23,851

That's near the total population of the city of Kingston, NY in 2010.

Since the rise of the pandemic 175,002 Americans have died of it.

 

 

Light a candle. Say a prayer. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart. If you think you are ill isolate yourself for 72 hours. If you think you have been exposed quarantine yourself for 14 days before exposing anyone else to you. Video chat with your loved ones. We can do this. May we all come out the other side.

 

 

[Statistics gathered from this W.H.O. website. They have changed as the numbers have come in, so there is some wiggle room around the exact number.]

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A Contemplative Poem for the Month

 

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.

All things break. And all things can be mended.

Not with time, as they say, but with intention.

So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

 

~ L.R. Knost