Notable Women of Woodland Driving Tour

Driving Tour Notable Women of Woodland

(and a few men)

Woodland Cemetery established 1848

Block 22

1.  Frances Elizabeth Cooper Hubbell (1840-1924) Monument Block Lot 79

Entertained suffrage conference at Terrace Hill in 1897  - Socialite

2.  Minnie Christina Elisabeth Lawson Fleur (1880-1930) lot 170 

elected Polk Co Auditor, raised funds for the Gold Star Monument at the Capitol

Block 11

3.  Orchard Place monument

Story of the formation of the orphanage after a child was abandoned on the steps of the Benedict Home and the continued fundraising by the DMWClub. Mrs. Benedict Benedict (Home and Friendless Children) buried elsewhere and Elizabeth Day Mann another founder is buried in Glendale Cemetery)

4.  Mary B. Muffly 1842-1922 Block 11 Lot 1.  WCTU, Crocker Relief Corp of GAR. Train wreck survivor

Block 21

5. Annie Savery  Monument Lot 25, Early suffrage activist, owner of the Savery Hotel with her husband.  A friend of Amelia Bloomer, she was pushed from Suffrage leadership as a result of her support of Victoria Woodhall. https://vimeo.com/535321885

Block 12

 6. Infants on west along road Point out infants and markers funded by Gerald LaBlanc and the DAR

Block 19  

7.  Governor Cummins Supported women suffrage with wife and sister-in-law, both DMWC presidents. Cover the 50 year struggle for an Iowa constitutional amendment.

8  Ida Cummins  Lot 57 (1853-1918) Cora Cummins 57 (1858-1948)

 9.  Grace Cramer Lot 71 (1872-1924)  Wife of Frank – as a couple they founded and ran the Sunbeam Rescue Mission , a social service and religious mission in downtown Des Moines “little mother”

10.  Delia Ann Webster (1817-1904) Block 19 Lot 10  Abolitionist first woman in US to be jailed as a conductor on the underground railroad in Ohio. Moved to IA age 83 to live with niece. Show headstone on tablet. https://vimeo.com/711417509  https://vimeo.com/535071069

Block 18

 11.  Mary Sipp Orwig (1839-1907) Lot 21 (Suffragist on a national level with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  

 12.  Mary Helen Baylies Peters (1850-1940) Lot 4  Women’s Relief Corp, WCTU, Home for the Aged, DMWC President. https://vimeo.com/535259697

Block 17

18.  Ellen J Cilley Ward (Mrs. Byron C.) Block 17 lot 70 Founder of the YWCA and supporter of Sunbeam Rescue Mission.  Active Plymouth Church social reform.

13. Alice Carey Wilson Weitz (1871-1957) Responsible for the building of HSP Auditorium for Hoyt Sherman Place  Monument Lot 71. Spearheaded the funding and building of the HSP theater which opened in 1923. Celebrating its 100th anniversary. Club brought many notables to DSM. Built to have seats for all 1400 members.

 14.  Rebecca Ann McMeekin Nourse 55 (1827-1907) 0n hill - Important early suffragist

15.   Captain John Collins 00102 (1794-1857) owned a shipping line, purchased old master paintings in Europe which were displayed at the Met in NYC, reburied at Woodland in family plot.

16.   Sarah A “Aunt Becky” Graham Palmer Young 1830- 1908  Block 17 Lot 134 (has QR) Was a nurse during the civil war and a strong advocate for wounded soldiers.  Wrote about her army life in The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life https://vimeo.com/709932376

 17.   Calista Halsey Patchin 00135 (1845-1920) First woman reporter at Washington Post in DC, writer, novelist and artist, journalist, spearheaded the first Des Moines Art Gallery at Hoyt Sherman Place

Block 23

 18 Rosella “Ella” Still 1856-1938 Block 23 Lot 3 Physician, gynecologist, teacher. With huer husband, Summerfield, Still, founded Still College, now Des Moines University.

Block 14

19.   Eliza Cox Mitchell (Mrs. WF ) 1854-1914 Block 14 Lot 29– negotiated the lease of HSP for DMWC clubhouse. Spearheaded the formation of Iowa General Federation of Women’s Clubs.  As member of library board, won a critical fight about library flooring. 

20.  Alice Cheek  1852-1910, Block 14 Lot 193 – Active member of the Women’s Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic.  Aided Civil War Veterans,  she sang  at over 2500 veterans’ funerals. https://vimeo.com/710094957

21.  Elizabeth “Eliza” Heaton Hunter 1842-1906 Suffragist, Political equity club WCTU.  Mary Bonnnet Ankeny Hunter, 1870-1954. Suffragist, League of Women Voters, Club Woman, responsible for Women’s Suffrage memorial/ fund raising, choose artist.. Block 14 Lot 234 https://vimeo.com/536435445

Block 15

22.    Jenny (1811-1909)and Henry (1818-1903) Bell  Lot 18 Freedom Seekers, Jordan House, Suffragist, Community leaders. https://vimeo.com/712190678  https://vimeo.com/711403190

23.  Alice Alvinia Crawford Baily-Gorst (1854-1938) 64 Active suffragist, club woman and wife of Coggeshall attorney:  William Henry Baily (1850-1910) 64 lot 64

24.  Ellen S, Hoare Plumly 1846-1918 Block 15 Lot 164

Songbird of the Grand Army of the Republic  https://vimeo.com/710183952

 25.  Dr Esther Eliza Poore Allen, 1819-1881 Block 15 Lot 311. Civil war nurse, became a doctor.  Women’s Relief Corp (founder) aux of the GAR.  

Block 20

26.  Mrs AY Rawson (Mary Louise Scott Rawson 1839-1900) Block 20 Lot 1 Sunbeam Rescue Mission, Friendless Children.

Block 9

 27.  Mary J. Coggeshall (1836-1911) 97 (mention Grace Ballantyne) City suffrage law suit along with others from Political Equity Club.  Delayed city building, won in Iowa Supreme court. https://vimeo.com/535329028

28.  Kate Sibley Fowler 1857-1923 Block 9 sec 74 Ran for school board before women suffrage.

29.  Martha Crosby Frisbie 00105 (1840-1931) Educator and club member, abolitionist, religious leader, Frisbie School, Frisbie Park

 30.  Sara Adelia Hackleman Mills Clapp 16 (chair) (1835-1906)  Civil war work, raised $ for fatherless families of men killed in Civil War – grave restored, Suffragist. Restored plot.

 31.  Maria Orwig 04 (1828-1909) Early suffragist and charter member of DMWC, supporter of Annie Savery in suffragists political battle. https://vimeo.com/710183566

 32.  Sarah Elvira Moulton Sherman (Monument Lot 8) (1837-1887) died at age 49

Sister in law of Wm T. Sherman, private person,  skull stollen from Monument https://vimeo.com/535330081

Block 6

33.  Mrs. Annice Baldwin Tracy, (1835-1899) founded an early Des Moines hospital and Tracy Home Block 6 Lot 141 is a monument for her father and mother and for her husband and daughters:  V.D. Tracy and Libbie and Gertrude Tracy aged 7 and 5 years.  The girls have a double bed memorial. Annice has a marker, but she is buried in the GAR Grand Army of the Republic section.

Block 10

 34.  Elizabeth N Collins Coskery (1865-1938) Block 10 lot 206 DMWC president, passed down the paintings, Margaret Louise Coskery 00206 (1888-1975) Daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Collins. Donated important paintings to Des Moines Women’s Club.

 35.  Susan Ankeny Brown Block 10 Lot 197.   Founder of art league, Brown hotel (fish collection) DAR, Pres of DMWC, the 4th Ankeny daughter, DSM Votes for Women league, Brown hotel Stuffed fish collection, (family never lived in Ankeny)

 36.  Cora Bussey Hillis 00248 (1858-1924) Fought for and funded the first Des Moines City Plan funded by DSM Women’s Club– child advocate, founded the first Child Welfare Research Station.

Emanuel Cemetery 

37.  Irma Shloss Mannheimer Emanuel Lot 145 (1890-1974) Demonstrated business skills as Des Moines Women’s Club president.  Managed the new theater and the demands of being a very popular venue. With husband a founder of DMARC Des Moines Area Religious Council. 

38.  Rose Frankel Rosenfield Emanuel OLD Lot 54 (1873-1960) Suffragist, financially supported the 1916 Iowa suffrage amendment vote. Her brown velvet dress in the Iowa State University fabric museum.  Frankel Clothing.

St. Ambrose

 39.  Ellen Kean Flynn St. Ambrose Block 9 Lot 19 (1842-1922) Was an ardent anti-suffragist who was converted on a trip to California and made a very public statement in favor when she returned to Iowa.

Lorna Truck 

Driving Tour Route August 2023