Community Corner
Sarah Wallis: 100 Years of Women's Suffrage
The Palo Alto Historical Association remembered suffragist and Palo Altan Sarah Wallis last week. Oct. 11 marks the centennial of the women's right to vote in California, almost a decade prior to the constitutional amendment.
Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Stanton - for most people, these suffragists for women's rights are old news
Yet the same can hardly be said for Sarah Wallis, a Palo Altan who was instrumental in bringing the vote to women in California nearly a decade before it became federal law.
In his lecture at the titled "Sarah Wallis: An Almost Forgotten Heroine," historian Doug Graham explained why the woman has gotten so little attention.
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Graham, president of the Palo Alto Historical Association said that Wallis was guilty of a few incriminating "sins"; these included being born a woman, not being photographed, avoiding journalists, dying poor, and "being a leader in a cause that succeeds only after your death," he said.
But Wallis' life was not always so obscure. She gained status in Palo Alto as the woman who successfully lobbied to move an inconveniently placed train station - near present-day Churchhill and Alma roads - to the California Avenue station today. She built a mansion on a farm at Barron Park, which now has a monument that was resurrected in her honor on Oct. 11, 1986. There she hosted people like former president Ulysses S. Grant as well as Anthony and Stanton.
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The once-illiterate Missouri girl gained prominence as the founder of the Mayfield Woman Suffrage Organization, of which she was the first president. In 1870 she presided over the first ever meeting of all nine woman suffrage societies in Calfiornia, which took place in San Francisco. Three years later she became the first president of the state suffrage association and lobbied to allow women lawyers in California courts.
Unfortunately, Wallis lost her fortune during a depression of 1877 and had to sell her mansion for only a third of what it was worth. Nevertheless, she and her husband were able to build a home where the Sarah Wallis park is located today. According to Graham, Wallis was criticized for using unnecessarily high-end fixtures inside the home.
Eventually, she moved into another cottage belonging to her son in Los Gatos. There she died of natural causes, largely unacknowledged until recently.
Oct. 11 marks the 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote in California; the Palo Alto Historial Association will be presenting on Clara Foltz, the first woman admitted to the California bar, on Nov. 6.
