I have spent the last several weeks coming through 2500 photos of people in the Master Tree and trying to normalize the names presented in the photos.

I recently posted about how cumbersome that is, but something else has struck me that I’d like to share. On a recent trip to Lake Travis near Austin, TX a friend was sharing a story about his future son-in-law coming to his house to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. I thought this was sweet, but another person in the car had a different take.

He thought it was an outdated tradition that took women’s power from them and placed it into the hands of a man. He went on to say that two men shouldn’t decide if a woman should get married and that it made her feel more like property than an equal.

In my mind, these days, the woman still has the final say, but should the father say “NO” what happens next? Does the groom go forward and ask the potential bride? Or does he simply walk away?

This has haunted me as I stare at thousands of pictures of women that have no last name in history. Not because they didn’t have one, but because it wasn’t important enough to record it. So many women were just Mrs. Sew and Sew.

So, I’m working to reassemble both the Maiden and Married names of these women to record as much information about them as possible. History has not been kind to these women and I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out who Mrs. Graham was. She was the mother of the wife of Theodore “Dot” Adolphus Babb who was captured by the Comanche Indians as a child and went on to great fame and published a book about his experience that is still being reprinted today.

This fame is the only reason we know of a good bit of Dot’s family. In the book he includes this picture which is titled only as Mrs. Graham, Dot’s Mother.

I struggled to find her at first because Dot’s birth mother is Elizabeth Ann Jenkins, who of course married a Babb (or we wouldn’t be having this conversation). I went on to discover that Dot’s wife’s full name was Emma Patricia Graham. Even Emma Patricia’s Headstone shows this disregard for her identity and only lists her as Dot’s wife Pattie.

So, it seemed apparent that Mrs. Graham was Emma Patricia’s mother. But how do you find a record that proves her name when all you have is two names when neither of them is hers? This was the challenge I had.

Fortunately, I’m a crafty researcher and I managed to find a Death Certificate for Emma Patricia (Graham) Babb which lists her fathers full name of Robert H Graham and her mother’s as M. A. Hauks. This gave me a portion of the story with a last name to work from. It also gave me Emma’s first name which also wasn’t encapsulated in the book.

From there I was able to find an 1860 Census record which lists her as Minerva A. Babb. Combining the two I have reconstructed most of her full name as Minerva A Hauks.

This sequence has played itself out dozens of times over these last few weeks and made me more determined than ever to reclaim these women’s identities. After all they represent half of our collective ancestry and deserve equal time.

There isn’t a perfect solution to this as it is impossible to tell if the woman adopted her married name or not (which is quite common these days). But going forward I will endeavor to reference every woman by both her Maiden and Married names. This will be most evident in Photographs and will certainly help sort out the vast number of Mary and Sarah’s in our tree.

Thus it is taking me longer than expected to go through this exercise, but I believe it is well worth it to provide a voice to these women and to tell their stories properly. So, Mrs. Graham is now: Minerva A (Hauks) Babb.

I hope you enjoy the last 10 days of Women’s History Month. This is our history and I’m so glad that we are able to finally start telling the story of these amazing women!

For anyone whose family has been touched by adoption, you likely already know how it is often almost impossible to understand your family history. Over the last few years I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to help adoptees locate information on their Ancestry. This often comes with mixed results and DNA research often unseals those family secrets anyway. So, I’m glad to see legislation start to move forward that will give options for the first time to many.

Here is a link to the article written today on MotherJones.com.

Most American Adoptees Can’t Access Their Birth Certificates. That Could Be About to Change

The Babb Family Association has contracted with the University of Illinois to digitize the Diaries and Notes of Thomas Babb so that they may be used for Research and an in depth view of an English Immigrant who came to America and lived “The Dream”. Until now the little known manuscript has lived in obscurity with no good way of sharing its extensive 8 volumes of data detailing as many years of his life. I’ve been waiting anxiously to get a copy of this manuscript and one of our members served as the lightning rod for the arrangement. Thanks Zach!

The process takes about a month, so stay tuned!

Scope and Contents:

Thomas Babb is a member of the DNA Lineage known as the Potters of Staffordshire. He was born in 1841 in Staffordshire, England, but moved to the United States in 1860. Settling first in Ohio, where he was married, Babb moved to Mahomet, Champaign County, Ill., in 1861. Babb spent the next two decades acquiring and farming several hundred acres of land throughout the county, before starting a hog and grain business in 1880. These businesses flourished, and in 1897 Babb began splitting his time between Illinois and Texas, where he owned a cattle business. After his wife’s death, Babb traveled throughout the world until his own death in 1915.

These diaries document Babb’s daily life during his travels. Book A, dating from Aug.-Nov. 1905, describes a return trip to Great Britain, while Books B-D record a lengthy trip around the world from July 1908 through Apr. 1909. Books E-F trace Babb’s travels in Italy, Egypt, and the Middle East, Sept.-Nov. 1909, and a 1910 journey through Texas. Book G begins with a visit to England in 1911, and ends with a trip to Texas, where he remarried in early 1912. Finally, Book H is a record of a trip to the West Coast and back during Sept. and Oct. 1912.

Ann Gibbons of Champaign, Ill., and Ruth Cole of Hull, Ill., donated these diaries to the Survey in 2001.

Arabelle, who later wished to be known as Belle A., studied law at a law office after graduating from IWU. The Iowa code provided admission to the bar only to "any white male person" but the statute was repealed by an act of Jan. 1853. BELLE was admitted to practice law in June 1869, and in March 1870 the words "White male" were omitted from the statute. Thus BELLE became the first woman admitted to practice law. She Married Prof. J. M. Mansfield and in 1898-99 BELLE was Dean and Lecturer on the Theory and History of Fine Arts and Music at DePauw Univ.

Article from Iowa Wesleyen College with a biography of Belle and info about the dedication of a sculpture of her at the campus:

First woman admitted to the Bar in the United States in 1869
Arabella (Belle) Babb Mansfield, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, passed the bar exam on June 15, 1869 to become the first woman licensed to practice law in the United States.
Belle was born in Sperry, Iowa in 1846. Her mother, having heard that Mount Pleasant had excellent schools, moved the family to Mount Pleasant when Belle was a child. In 1866, Belle graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant. The following year, she began studying law with her brother in the Ambler Law Office. In June 1868, she married John Mansfield, a professor of science at Iowa Wesleyan.

Belle never practiced law in the traditional sense. It is likely that she was too involved with teaching and women’s issues at the time. Throughout her career, not only was she a professor at Iowa Wesleyan College, Simpson College and DePauw University, but Belle was a strong advocate of women’s voting rights. In the fall of 1869, she joined the executive committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association. The following spring, she became president and chair of the first Iowa state-wide woman suffrage convention, held in Mount Pleasant.

During the early 1870’s, Belle traveled extensively in Europe observing the courts of London, and studying law in France. In the summer of 1893, Belle addressed the National League of Women Lawyers at the Chicago World’s Fair, where she was officially acknowledged as the first woman to be admitted to the bar in the U.S. After enjoying a long and successful career as an educator, public orator, world traveler, art historian, and journalist, Belle Babb Mansfield passed away in 1911, at age 64.

Honors
• The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) presents an annual Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, the organization’s highest honor, given in recognition of professional achievement, positive influence, and valuable contribution to women in the law and in society.
• Belle Babb Mansfield was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame by Governor Robert Ray and the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women on August 21, 1980.
• The Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys established an annual Arabella Mansfield Award in 2002.
• The Belle Babb Mansfield memorial room was established in 1969 in Chadwick Library on the Iowa Wesleyan College campus.
I grew up in Mount Pleasant knowing nothing about Belle Babb Mansfield. I want girls growing up here to know that women can do and be anything they choose. I want young women who consider attending Iowa Wesleyan College to know that this community has always nurtured women who achieve. I want student-athletes who compete at the College, children riding their bikes to school, and visitors from far away who come to Mount Pleasant to learn about Belle Babb Mansfield.
-Christie Vilsack, Former First Lady of Iowa
The Belle Babb Mansfield Committee and Iowa Wesleyan College have set a preliminary fund-raising goal of $250,000 to go toward:
• Commemorative Statue
The creation of a bronze statue of Belle Babb Mansfield by Benjamin Victor is to be placed on the Iowa Wesleyan campus in Mount Pleasant.
May 2, 2008 Dedication on Iowa Wesleyan Campus Lawn
• Mansfield Symposium
An endowment for the Belle Babb Mansfield Symposium to be held at Iowa Wesleyan College. The annual event will host high profile and nationally recognized speakers to honor and highlight the accomplishments of women and to encourage their professional empowerment.
The dedication of the Belle Babb Mansfield Statue wasMay 2, 2008 at 2:30 pm on the campus lawn.
The dedication speaker was Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend (born July 4, 1951) was lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Maryland from 1995 to 2003. She ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Maryland in 2002. The eldest of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel’s 11 children, she is part of the Kennedy political family. She was named for her aunt Kathleen Agnes Kennedy, Marchioness of Hartington, who died in a plane crash in 1948.

About the Artist –
Biography by Ruth McKinney, Professor of Fine Art, M.F.A.
“A gift from God” is the way Benjamin Victor describes his natural ability to sculpture monumental size works of art. By receiving his first large commission at only 23 years old Benjamin joined the ranks of Michelangelo, Bernini, Daniel Chester French, and Maya Lin. At age 26 he became the youngest artist ever to have a sculpture in our Nation’s foremost collection of figurative sculpture (the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol).

Art critics and organizations (including the National Sculpture Society in New York City) continue to recognize the aesthetic and conceptual integrity of Benjamin’s artwork. His incredible passion and drive show in each of his unique and profound creations. With expressive features, exquisite detail, dynamic gesture and thought provoking content the sculpture of Benjamin Victor is sure to take its place among the great masterpeicies of art history.
http://www.iwc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=910&Itemid=812
© 2008 Iowa Wesleyan College