EVERETT – Contributions made by women throughout the history of Snohomish County are being brought to new light.
Everett’s first hospital was started in 1893 by a woman, Electa Friday, who also was Everett’s first female physician.
Courtesy of the Everett Public Library
Jane Rucker played a strong role in her family’s early development of Everett, so much so that a statue of her was placed atop the family monument at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery. The statue has been missing for many years.
Anna Agnes Maley, a socialist, pulled in one-third of the vote for governor in 1912. She edited a socialist newspaper, Commonwealth, and was involved in the suffrage movement.
Sarah Andrews Thornton wasn’t just the wife of Walter Thornton of Snohomish, the county’s first major-league baseball player. She helped start Everett’s first orphanage and was a teacher, writer and speaker.
Actress Nancy Coleman (also known as Nancy Bolton) of Everett was a prominent actress who appeared in films with Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan.
Gertrude Best became publisher of The Herald in 1922.
These were some of the women discussed by Everett Library historian Margaret Riddle in a Sunday talk on the Snohomish County Women’s Legacy Project, a research effort aimed at producing a book on the contributions of women of the county through the years.
The talk was presented by the Museum of Snohomish County History, currently presenting the exhibit “A Woman’s Place in History,” an overview of women’s history in the county and the state.
Research has been going on for about 20 years, Riddle said. About 10 years ago, Ann Ducy Norman of Everett began the effort to collect the information for a book, Riddle said.
Now, 13 women around the county with an interest in local history, with help from 10 historians, journalists, biographers and members of historical families, are working on the project, Riddle said.
The group is gathering information from many sources, including women’s club scrapbooks and newspapers, dating back to before 1900, she said.
“Women were not ignored, even in the early years,” Riddle said. “You find a lot of accounts. You have to look for it, but it is there.”
Women were instrumental in starting churches and schools as the area developed, Riddle said.
“The church is a huge place to look for women’s history,” she said.
Women were involved in a number of professions, including those more traditional for women in the first part of the 20th century, including teaching, health care, family businesses, and, yes, prostitution, Riddle said. Nuns were prominent in the establishment of Providence Hospital in the original Monte Cristo Hotel in 1905.
Others, though, were in professions less traditional for women. Alice Kerr served as mayor of Edmonds from 1924 to 1926. Alice White Reardon, and later Mary Alice Voland, published newspapers in Monroe.
Firsthand accounts from pioneer women have provided historical detail, such the letters written by Tillie Winkler Robinson, whose husband, Tom, started the Robinson Mill in Everett. Annette Fitch-Brewer, who fled the East Coast with her son following a custody dispute and brought him to Lake Stevens, describes her life in the book “A Mother Love.”
“Women are storytellers,” Riddle said.
Riddle said the research group hopes to publish a book next year. The museum exhibit continues through June.
For more information, call 425-257-8005 or 425-388-3311, ext. 2372.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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