Dear Daughter: This has been election day and some way it has been strenuous. Thus began a letter written by my grandmother, Helen Richardson Espy, on Tuesday, November 3, 1914. She was writing to her oldest child, Medora, who was away at school. The letter continued:
Papa, Mr. Stoner and Mr. Goulter have charge of the polls. Mrs. Stoner took the men up their noon meal and I sent dinner tonight. Our stove has been smoking to beat its record, and I had an awful time getting anything cooked. To top it off, your three year old brother went off with little Albert Andrews today and had an undress parade right down Fourth Street. I was so provoked. They were not together fifteen minutes. This happened while I was off voting. Willard has been threatened with dire results if he went ever since their last “undress parade” so I punished him this time and think he is duly impressed. It just goes to show that women belong at home and not at election polls.
Despite the wry tone of the letter, my grandmother took her responsibility seriously and was undoubtedly pleased that women had won the right to vote in Washington in 1910 – a full ten years before the 19th amendment granted that same right to women across the nation. She was not a stranger to the political process or to the issues of the times. She had been an active behind-the-scenes helpmate to my grandfather during his years in the Washington State Senate. In fact, in the election of 1920, she actually had her first (and maybe only) paid job working at the Oysterville polling place.
In those days (and for all subsequent years until the current mail-in-vote process), the people of the Oysterville precinct voted at the schoolhouse. My first experience voting there occurred shortly after I had moved here full-time in 1978. After years of voting in the anonymous-feeling polling places of suburban California, I finally felt a grassroots connectedness here. I miss that.
The letter is a pleasure to read because it is what makes life: daily little treasures complications and joy. Love the undress parade, so funny. Never get to see that anymore. Plus I miss the polling places too. I got a get out the vote message from Barack Obama.com to meet at Sid Snyder drive. What do you suppose they will be doing today when we all have mail in votes?