Frances Slaven Williamson

portrayed by Jessica Dykstra

Frances Slaven Williamson could probably be called one of the most obscure feminists in history. This woman, from Austin, Nev., however, helped to organize the suffragist movement in Nevada.

Willamson was born in Canada in 1842 and came to Nevada in 1863 to teach. She quickly became active in Austin, filling the roles of both teacher and school principal.

Her husband, John R. Williamson, was the superintendant of schools, the owner of the mercantile and active in politics.

Williamson was not a suffragist until the early 1890s, after a series of tragedies struck her family. Four of her six children died of a strange illness between 1876 and 1877. She recovered from the losses; her husband did not.

When her oldest son died in 1891, Williamson's husband committed suicide.

Left with one surviving family member, her daughter, Mary Laura, Frances threw hersef into suffrage activism.

In 1891 she became secretary of the newly-formed Lucy Stone Non-Partisan Suffrage League. A few years later she helped form the State Equal Suffrage Association and brought Susan B. Anthony to speak to suffragists in the state.

She moved to Reno and published a suffragist newspaper, The Nevada Citizen, on a weekly basis from about 1897 to August 1898.

She lived in Washington, D.C. for a time and then moved back to the west with her daughter. Unfortunately, Mary Laura died in 1900, soon after they had arrived in California.

She remained active in California, attending conventions and meetings.

Williamson died Dec. 21, 1919, the same year the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. She died before the suffrage amendment was ratified and added to the Bill of Rights.