|
|
|
|
|
1912 – Mary Day French casts her first vote in a presidential election at age 84. MARY DAY FRENCH Mary was born on September 15, 1828. Mrs. French came to Ojai when she was 74 years old, and she died about 10 years later. Born to a deacon of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey, Mary day married Charles Miller at the age of 14. They moved west, pioneering in the territories of Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, and eventually Washington. According to the stories she passed down to her children and grandchildren, Mary Day French endured some extremely rigorous hardships, living, at times, in constant fear of Indians and occasionally facing destitution. When her husband died, Mary married a man named Mr. French. He left her a widow, as well. Helen Baker Reynolds described her grandmother as a tiny, gnome-like woman who was so stooped she was almost bent over. She had a spinal deformity which was supposed to have been brought on by years of overwork. Helen remembered her grandmother as having “sad, anxious gray eyes and gray hair parted in the middle and drawn back into a small, tight knot.” Mrs. French was almost deaf. Helen remembered her grandmother disapproving of some of the clothes the Baker children wore. Toward the end of the first decade of the century, for example elbow-length sleeves came into style. Whenever any of the Baker girls appeared dressed to go out in public with their arms bare to the elbow, grandmother French, according to Helen” would avert her eyes in shame.” She even considered Helen’s little-girl dresses indecent because “it barely covers her knees.” Mrs. French came to Ojai in 1902. Her days here were filled with knitting string washcloths, gathering eucalyptus bark to be used for fireplace kindling and helping the cook, Esing, in the kitchen whenever he would allow it. On Sunday, she would sit by the window reading her Bible and the Christian Herald. Her granddaughter, Helen, remembered her as a real worrier. According to Helen, “Anytime anyone from the family drove out with horse and buggy, she would station herself at the sitting room window and engage in silent but concentrated anxiety while watching for their return.” If one were to visit the Baker household during the weekday, they would find Mrs. French wearing a calico apron. She always changed just before supper into one of white percale. Outside the house, she wore a sunbonnet. On Sundays, she would dress in black alpaca and wear a bonnet tied under the chin with velvet ribbons.
Although she seemed old-fashioned in some ways, Mary French was a progressive thinker when it came to a woman’s right to vote. She proudly cast the first ballot of her life at the age of 84 in the presidential election of 1912. This event had such meaning to her, that she was the first one to the polls that day in Nordhoff. Mary’s first vote was also her last, as she died a few months later on May 2, 1913. 28 Source: Fry, Patricia L. & Dennis Mullican, Home
| Events
| History | Exhibits
| Docents About
| Maps
| Cam
|Sponsors
| Links |
