Anne Clay were raised in Richmond, Kentucky at White Hall, the Clay family home. Her father was Cassius Marcellus Clay, a nationally known abolitionist, an advisor to President Lincoln, and who would later serve as Unites States Minister to Russia. Her mother was Mary Jane Warfield Clay. The Clay family was large and included six girls and four sons, though not all survived to adulthood. The children's relationship with their father was a limited one in that he traveled extensively and was seldom home. Cassius Clay was habitually unfaithful to his wife and the Clays divorced in 1878 when Laura was 28 years old and Anne was 19.

Anne Clay Crenshaw
Virginia Suffragist

Anne Clay Crenshaw hosted the first meeting of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia at her Richmond home in November 1909. We met her granddaughters, Anne Warfield Crenshaw Truesdale and Sally Crenshaw Witt in Richmond. Anne shared stories of her famous grandmother, whom she lived with as a girl. Anne Clay Crenshaw and her sister, Laura Clay, recognized how desperately women needed a voice and the power to effect change after witnessing their parents' divorce and its devastating effects on her mother. At one of the League's early meetings, Anne Clay Crenshaw told the assembled members she wanted to bring her children up in an atmosphere of freedom and distinct individuality. On the basis of our meeting with her accomplished and fascinating granddaughters, we'd say she succeeded.

The Nineteenth Amendment became U.S. law on August 18, 1921. It took the Virginia legislature another thirty-two years to ratify the amendment, although that didn't stop Virginia women from exercising their federal right to vote. Now, only 56 years since Virginia's ratification, the pundits say the women of Virginia are going to be the ones who determine whether Virginia remains a red state or swings blue.

Anne Clay Crenshaw would be proud.