Emery County
The Woman Suffrage Association of Emery County was organized in Castle Dale on October 19, 1889.
Mary Ramjue and others of Wellington petitioned Utah’s constitutional convention to include women’s equal suffrage rights in the state constitution.
Key Players
Woman Suffrage Association of Emery County
“W.S.A. Organizations,” Womans Exponent, January 1, 1890.
The Woman Suffrage Association of Emery County was organized on October 19, 1889, at Castle Dale. This association worked for women’s suffrage to be secured in Utah’s constitution when it applied for statehood in 1895. Women and men met together to encourage each other, express their feelings about suffrage, and give speeches and lectures on women’s history and responsibilities in society. At the first meeting, Sarah Ann Fulmer of Orangeville was elected president of the association, with Mary Ann Mc’Donough, Caroline A. Larsen, Adelia Mackleprang, Paulina Pace, Jenny Cox, Joanna Curtis, Marie Olsen, Amanda Shipp, Anne Pulsipher, Jossia Childs, Hannah Seely, Hannah U. Larsen, and Kathinka Anderson filling other leadership roles.
Josie E. Childs
Josie E. Childs. Photograph courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
Johanna Elizabeth Coates Childs had many interests, and was a poet who believed books and knowledge were important for women. She volunteered to help further women’s reading and access to books in Emery County, noting that “our minds need food as well as our bodies.” Childs was active in several women’s groups over the years. She was part of the peace movement, speaking at a peace meeting in 1899, and was also the secretary of the Orangeville Ladies Improvement Club. Childs was first counselor in the Emery Stake Relief Society presidency for about 20 years and supervised all the Relief Societies in the Stake. When she and her presidency visited local Relief Societies, they “improved the opportunity of agitating the suffrage cause, and insisted upon all to become acquainted with its great aim.”
Childs was also the secretary of the Woman Suffrage Association in Emery County and wrote articles about suffrage which were published in the Woman’s Exponent. Childs felt that advocating for suffrage could unite all women and she worked to inform women in political matters. She believed that with study, determination, and God’s help, women could do anything. “Sisters let us go to with an energy and zeal worthy of such a cause and add to our store-house of knowledge, and not have it said of us we had a chance to benefit humanity but did not avail ourselves of the opportunity.”