Bonnie Bailey
My primary residence is in Oskaloosa, Iowa where I spend summer months. I have five siblings, all living who visit each year. I have three married children, several grandchildren and great grandchildren. Writers Group is an integral part of my life at Carriage Manor. I appreciate and learn from the writings in our group and treasure the friendships. I enjoy life.
THE WEDDING DRESS
My grandparents, Dirk and Bertha were both born in 1877. In 1906 at twenty-nine years of age they married. Although we know nothing about their wedding, we have a picture and Grandma's wedding gown. Somehow it has survived all those years in several locations. It has appeared in a theater production, a wedding style show and once when we grandchildren were playing wedding in the haymow it was part of that performance. When Mother became aware of that escapade, she was not happy.
Beginning in 1980 and every five years following there has been a reunion of Dirk and Bertha's descendants with seventy-five to ninety attending. Attendees have ranged in age from newborn to into the nineties.
The wedding dress continued to hide in a closet. I started thinking that we should display it at a family gathering particularly since many family members had never seen it. Upon inspection I found that the composition of the dress was still in good condition, but it had become yellowed and had a few spots that resembled rust. I consulted a friend who had knowledge of vintage clothing. She said, "I have a product that should restore that type of fabric. I will give you some. It is a powder that you dissolve in water and soak overnight." She gave me a sufficient amount and I followed her instructions. The following morning, I removed the dress out of the solution fearing that it might have disintegrated. I was greatly relieved when I found that it had turned white, and the spots were gone. I squeezed out the water, waited for it to dry, then carefully pressed it with a warm iron. I was thrilled, it was nearly perfect.
Grandmother was tall and slender. Two of my nieces fit that description and also have dark hair as did their great-grandmother. I asked Avis, who is her grandmother's namesake, if she would model the gown for the reunion and asked her twin sister if she would be the bridegroom. Although the girls are fraternal twins they are identical in many ways including the same height as were my grandparents. Thankfully, they agreed to play these parts.
The day of the reunion, July 2011, they dressed in the chosen clothes. Nadine wore a dark suit similar to the one Grandpa wore. We picked red roses to put in Avis' hair and made a corsage of the same. According to the picture Grandma was adorned in that way.
The dress made an impression. 105 years old and in nearly perfect condition. Yes, indeed, it is a family heirloom, a special object.
SUFFURAGE
Elizabeth Cody Stanton and Lucretia Mott were attending an anti-slavery meeting in London in 1840. When they were denied the right to speak from the floor or to be seated as delegates, they left the meeting to discuss this. Although they were there to consider slavery, they began to consider the fact that they themselves were treated unequally. Mott was a former teacher and became interested in woman's rights when she realized she was paid one-half that of a male teacher.
After returning from London she began to travel and speak on the subject of woman's rights. She began to circulate petitions that led to an enactment of New York State married woman's property bill. This law also gave the right to keep wages they had earned and to retain guardianship of their children in cases of separation or divorce.
In 1848 Mott and Stanton met with a few other women and they organized a long-awaited woman's rights convention. The historic meeting took place at the Wesleyan Church in Seneca Falls, New York. On the first day Elizabeth Stanton presented the organizers' "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" that was carefully patterned after the Declaration of Independence, that included the phrase "all men are created equal". Those words were changed to all men and women. The twelve resolutions included jn their "sentiments" called for the repeal of laws that enforced unequal treatment of women including the right to vote. After much discussion and debate, the resolution passed largely as written. The biggest obstacle was the right to vote.
For the next several decades Mott, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led the struggle for women’s rights, including the right to vote. Mott, who continued to support the abolition of slavery and the right of women to vote died in 1880. In 1878 Stanton had drafted a federal woman suffrage amendment that continued to be introduced in each new term of Congress. Stanton died in 1902 and her amendment continued to be brought up until it passed in the form of the nineteenth amendment on June 4, 1919. This provided the way for women to vote in a general election in 1920. Only one of the one hundred women who voted for the amendment lived to see women gain the vote.
Women’s role has changed dramatically since they gained the right to vote. Today women are involved in nearly all areas of employment or appointment. Perhaps one of high interest are the positions they hold in government. Today, in 2018, there are twenty-two women senators (19.8%) among the one-hundred senators, eighty-four women in the House of Representatives (19.3%) among the four hundred and thirty-five, three female Supreme Court justices out of the nine, and six women governors out of the total fifty.
Women owe a great deal to those first few who diligently pursued their course of women's rights for nearly seventy years.