Viewpoints: What Emma Yule taught Everett, then and now

Story and graphic art by Deborah A. Fox

For The Herald

Emma Yule was a fascinating woman in Everett history. She should be right up there on a street sign or school name in Everett like the male industrialists of her time. In these #MeToo times, I identify with her career and life.

Despite all her struggles, Emma Yule lived life as world traveler, college professor, teacher, principal, author and philanthropist.

Emma Sarepta Yule arrived in Everett from Iowa in 1891, and became the first teacher in Everett’s new school house. Back then, Everett was a bustling industrial town with dirt roads lined with shops, saloons and brothels. It was gutsy for this attractive 28-year-old single woman to leave home for this wild country.

As Everett’s student body grew, Yule earned promotion to principal in 1892. But this promotion was short-lived. Less than five months later, a man was appointed to take over her job. She became principal again in 1894, but she was again replaced by a man less than a year later.

Yule was elected superintendent of Everett Public Schools in 1897 — another impressive precedent — but three years later, a man unseated her and she was demoted to principal. Shortly after, she was denied a salary increase and let go.

In late 1900, Yule left Everett for Juneau, Alaska. It seems evident the patriarchal climate wasn’t much better there, as she didn’t stay. During her time in Alaska, she began to travel internationally.

By 1912, she was living in the Philippines, a college professor, and a published author of textbooks. Yule traveled extensively throughout her life: Europe, New York City, the western United States and throughout Asia. Yule wrote a book about her travels in Japan.

She retired in Los Angeles in 1937, where she stayed active in a women’s academic club. She remained unmarried and never had children. Emma Yule died in 1939.

She was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Everett. Former students were her pallbearers.

Even though Yule left Everett, she had a huge impact here. During her tenure, the student body grew forty times over, from 26 to 1,032. She advocated for excellence in her students and started school programs that lasted decades. She was an honorary member of the Everett High School Alumni Association, and a charter member of the First Congregational Church. Yule even bequeathed part of her estate to scholarships for women at University of Washington.

Emma’s leadership had a lasting effect on students. Some of them, such as Margaret Clark, Everett’s first graduating student, went on to become educators and prominent citizens in Everett.

Another of her students, Leroy Vernon, who co-founded the student newspaper, became a nationally known political columnist.

As a career woman, Yule’s accomplishments are even more dazzling because of the time in which she lived. Women were not allowed to vote. Few owned their own property or had jobs. Women were wives and mothers, dependent on their husbands.

Emma was excluded from the Women’s Book Club, because she was unmarried.

More than a hundred years later, I sat on Emma’s grave and wondered over what had changed since her time in Everett. I concluded it was a mixed bag.

The #MeToo movement gives me a glimmer of hope. Sexual harassment and gender pay inequities are getting some serious attention.

But it’s dispiriting that after a century, we are still having many of the same problems Yule experienced. Change seems to be coming slowly.

We have female mayors in Everett and Seattle. That’s a very positive step. Yule would like that.

An educated, female principal being denied entry into a book club based on marital status is unimaginable today. Yule would be thrilled.

Women are less stigmatized for being career women. A woman can have a career, be a mother, wife, world traveler, be single or married, and whatever else she wants to be.

Considering the obstacles, Emma Yule’s success is impressive. The rejection that compelled her career to push her career forward, her self-confidence in asking for a raise, and her bravery in seeking better work environments are all things familiar to me as a career woman.

The more I study her, the more I like her. She traveled the world on her own. She stuck up for herself. She was an independent woman who broke convention.

The patriarchy of the times has erased her name from Everett’s history — almost. It seems unfair that we all know about industrialists like Rockefeller, Colby, Wetmore, Hoyt and Hewitt — some of whom never set foot in Everett — and this spirited, intelligent, well-traveled, interesting woman is practically unknown.

Emma S. Yule’s headstone is understated and looks classy in pink marble. But behind that epitaph, there is an amazing woman. Her resilience is inspiring.

Though Everett didn’t come through for Emma Yule (might I suggest: Emma Yule Middle School?), she must have felt enough connection to it to make it her final resting place. She chose to be buried next to her nieces. I hope it was also because she could look back at what she did in Everett and be proud.

Deb Fox is a graphic novelist and lives in Everett.