Remembering all the women who didn’t live to vote on this historic Election Day

Members of the National Women’s Political Caucus tell a Washington news conference on July 12, 1971 one of their goals is that women comprise half of the delegates to the 1972 presidential conventions. In 1971, seated from left: Gloria Steinem, member of the Democratic National Policy Council; Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) and Betty Friedan, women’s rights advocate; standing is Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.) (Charles Gorry/Associated Press)

As I dressed to go to the polls this morning, I put on three pieces of jewelry that I save for special occasions: a silver bracelet by the Mexican artist Antonio Pineda, my legacy from my grandmother on my father’s side, and two enamel rings that belonged to my husband’s grandmother, a gift from my mother-in-law. Neither woman lived to see this historic Election Day; my grandmother, Edna Quinto Rosenberg, died 22 years ago this month, while my husband’s grandmother, Mimi Gertz died in January last year. The prospect of going to vote without some token of them, without carrying their memories into the booth to cast my ballot, was unbearable.

As the election has approached, we’ve read stories about the many women born before, or even on, the day the 19th Amendment became law who have lived to cast their votes to elect Hillary Clinton president of the United States. My grandmother on my mother’s side, a lifelong political trooper who wore a hat festooned with a Ford car and a button declaring “Republicans Eat Peanuts” to the 1976 Republican convention, has been following the election avidly all season. But in the midst of this joy at the progress we can measure in a single lifetime, I’ve felt melancholy, too, remembering all the women who didn’t live to see this day, to debate its meaning and to push the woman who may become the first female president harder and higher.

I lost my Grandma Edna when I had just turned 10, but her example was clear to me even at that age. An October 1996 Cincinnati Magazine story about Crazy Ladies, the feminist bookstore and community space where she was “revered,” captures her political evolution.

“Rosenberg became an activist in the 1960s when a local swim club refused to integrate,” Coleen Armstrong wrote. “Her tires were slashed. Undaunted, she continued to be vocal until the policy was changed. Two decades later, serving on the Crazy Ladies board, she became aware of an equal need to address discrimination against women. ‘Kids,’ she’d say to [store manager] Colleen Ernst, ‘you know I’m not a feminist. But some things just aren’t right.’…’I can see her now,’ says Ernst, ‘dressed in her suit and pearls, sweeping the sidewalk in front of the store, muttering to herself, ‘If you’re going to sell books, then you’d better have this place looking good.'”

Like Edna, Mimi Gertz was born in New York. She lived there her entire life, and spent her whole career in public service, working first as a secretary for the Department of the Navy during World War II, and later in the same capacity for the New York Police Department. She voted for Clinton in the primary in 2008; after she died, one of the things my husband and I brought home from her apartment was his signed ticket to Clinton’s concession speech at the National Building Museum.

-snip- No pay wall at WaPo today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/11/08/remembering-all-the-women-who-didnt-live-to-vote-on-this-historic-election-day/?wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1