Mary had a Little Vote. . .

On their way to Vote!

 In September, 1920, the Attorney General notified County Clerk Steffey that it would not be necessary to have separate ballots for women as in other elections. For the September primary men and women WOULD vote the same ballot. The newspaper editor included this poem: “Mary has a little vote, a ballot white as snow, and what she means to do with it, her husband does not know.”

Later in the week this decision was reversed, and separate ballots and boxes would be required because of the Tennessee case going to the Supreme Court. Women would vote for all officers the same as men in Illinois, but their votes would be recorded separately. In case of an adverse decision by the court in which the ladies were NOT allowed to vote, the election would still be valid when their votes were removed from the count.

Another article followed this one.

"The ladies of Lawrenceville met and organized a club called the Good Citizens Club to study politics but the newspaper made a point of saying that the object of the club was ALSO to study practical child training, household efficiency and household art.

 The members were listed as the wives of the following men: Ed Ashbaugh, B. O. Sumner, George Tennison, E. S. Tanquary, E. M. Kelly, F. P. Haines, O. W. Longenecker, Ivan Wright, Wayne Petty, Guy Cannon, William Dean, H. C. Wheeler, D. Ross Abernathy, R. E. Dismore, C. A. McCarrol, D. B. Young, O. B. Carrithers, Charles McKamey, O. M. Stanton, George Freese, Frank Bray, John Kirkwood, C. C. McCord, Bess Morris, M. L. Warner, Novella Highsmith, Lyman Busse, Ralph Cook, R. R. Dension, Harry Gordon, Raymond Tate, N. M. Tohill, H. K. Hashbarger, H. H. Heckleman, Leon Newman, Sam Waggoner, Julian Henry, O. P. Dowell, Kenneth Wherry, J. J. Edgell and Miss Chloe Middagh.

(Women might be able to vote, but apparently they couldn’t get their own names in the newspaper, only those of their husbands.)