On August 14, 2020 several LWVWI members met 4 Girl Scouts from Troop 42517. at the Island County Historical Museum, they were on their way to earning the Washington State Parks 19th Amendment badge.  ICHS Director, Rick Castellano, lead the Scouts on a tour of the Island County Historical Museum’s special exhibit to highlight the contributions of Women to the founding and settling of Island County.  The League members were on hand to share the story of Women’s suffrage and the establishment of the League of Women Voters of Whidbey Island and the importance of voting – for everyone.  The hour-long visit culminated in a presentation of the badge earned from Jordan Belcher, Girl Scout Ranger, representing the Washington State Parks Commission.  The Scouts were an appreciative audience and came away with a great sense of the power of their vote – in the future!

​When she was in her late 20s, she was hired by the US State Department as a diplomatic “liaison.” That was her description for her role. I don’t know that she had an actual title. She was the only woman at the time doing what she did. She had learned to speak Spanish and was posted to various Latin American countries to provide short-term support to US embassy personnel in their communications with representatives of the governments in whose countries they worked.

Women’s right to vote and, as a result, societal changing views about the roles women could play, probably opened the door for her to have the opportunity that changed the course of her life. 

By the time my mother was assigned to Guatemala, she had had her fill of packing and unpacking her suitcase every few months. She fell in love with the country, met wonderful people who became dear friends, and quit her government job. She met my father, and they married. That’s how I came to be born and raised in Guatemala.

I was in high school during the 1960s, which were the early years of a brutal 30-year civil war. It pitted the country’s large indigenous population against military forces that acted with impunity. There were other violent factions at play, with their own agendas, adding to the dangerous, deadly conflicts. At various points, we lived under martial law, or strict curfews. The country’s system of government was said to be a democracy, and because the United States applied a lot of pressure, elections were held.

But everyone knew ballot boxes were stuffed, votes were bought (an inexpensive strategy when campesinos made less than $1 a day) and ballots were tallied incorrectly, to name a few of the shenanigans. In a nutshell, elections were a sham.

When I arrived in the United States to go to college, I couldn’t wait to register to vote! Because my mother was American, I gained my citizenship through her. Being in this country, I had the confidence that my vote would count, just like everyone else’s. I knew I could go to my polling place and cast my ballot without being intimidated or coerced to favor a candidate. Because of the world I grew up in, I’ve never taken this very important right for granted.   

Carla Grau-Egerton

"My mother grew up in a small and dusty Nebraska town, when carriages or horseback were still the norm, and the only reason her father obtained a car was because he was a rural mail carrier - but the horse still worked better in the muddy mire that was typical of rural roads in winter. Point being that Mother may have been influenced by the importance of public institutions like the USPS at an early age - who knows? And the other point being that while she grew up from high button shoes to the space age, she also grew with the times, and voted in every election both local and national until her death at 103 years. Though she didn't specifically share stories of the Suffrage Movement, she told of "Chatauquas" coming to her town, and I feel that these could very well have included speakers for women's suffrage.

Mother's lesson in life:  listen to all sides of a topic, and "make up your own mind"....Sounds like an educated voter!

My own two first endeavors on reaching a new community: sign up for a library card, and register to vote !
Joann Roomes

​Chatauqua definition if needed: "popular U.S. movement in adult education that flourished during the late 19th and early 20th centuries". "