Union County Commissioner Chris Schmenk wore a yellow shirt symbolizing the centennial of women’s right to vote while speaking at a commemoration event Friday morning. Local officials planted a yellow rose bush to mark 100 years of women’s right to vote, as suffragists often wore yellow roses while fighting for their rights. (Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
As Union County officials mark the county’s bicentennial, they are also commemorating 100 years of women’s right to vote.
Local officials hosted the Union County Women’s Suffrage Centennial Event Friday morning to mark the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
County Commissioner Chris Schmenk said the ceremony centered around the planting of a yellow rose bush – a symbol of women’s suffrage – near the flagpole in front of the County Office Building at 233 W. Sixth Street.
During the ceremony, Schmenk read a resolution of support for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, which was passed by the commissioners Aug. 18.
State Representative Tracy Richardson and Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Dorothy Pelanda, the first female State Representative from Union County and the first female ODA director, also shared remarks during the event.
Schmenk read that the celebration offered “an opportunity to commemorate a milestone of democracy.”
The resolution noted that prominent women’s suffrage leaders spent time in Marysville advocating for the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke in the city on March 28, 1877 and Susan B. Anthony, also a vocal abolitionist, spoke at the Marysville Opera House and City Hall on Nov. 19, 1878.
Schmenk also read that Marysville natives were crucial in the national movement.
She said Kathryn Sellers moved to Washington, D.C. where she graduated from law school, became an officer in the Equal Franchise League, served as President of the Equal Suffrage League from 1910 to 1912 and became the country’s first female federal judge in 1918.
Ohio later became the sixth state to ratify the 19th Amendment on June 16, 1919.
A year later, on Nov. 2, 1920, Schmenk said three women were among the first to vote in Union County: Kathryn Burcher Roosa of Broadway, Molly Simmons Bump of Marysville and Helen Gorton of Irwin.
Gorton is quoted in the resolution as saying, “Women are just as capable as men and bring something to politics that we need. Females see things a little differently than men, and that perspective may be a welcome change in government.”
Schmenk said Marion Bump, the grandson of Simmons Bump, and Bonnie Rockenbaugh Rodenberger, great granddaughter of Kathryn Burcher Roosa, were also in the audience to witness the commemoration.
When she began thinking about how to mark the centennial, Schmenk said she reached out to Union County Historical Society Director Bob Parrott.
She said she originally hoped to hold a larger celebration before restrictions were imposed by COVID-19, but wanted to capitalize on what Parrott shared with her about the use of roses during the women’s suffrage movement.
Suffragists who met in Nashville, Tennessee in 1920 to lobby the state legislature – the last needed to ratify the 19th Amendment – wore yellow roses to show their support.
Schmenk said the newly planted yellow rose bush, donated by The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, would serve to “honor the work of those women who struggled for the right of universal suffrage.”
The commissioners’ resolution also encourage all registered voters of any gender, race or creed to “make their voices heard by casting their votes” in the November 2020 general election.