At the Worthington Historical Society’s 2021 General Meeting, Leslie Blankenship will introduce one of Worthington’s notable women in first-person. Elizabeth Greer Coit’s eight-year old daughter Belle posed the question, “Mother, are you strong-minded and do you wear pants?” when she ran home from school crying. It was 1863, and Belle had been bullied by boys. One of the founders of the Columbus Soldiers’ Aid Society during the war, Elizabeth tolerated no nonsense and held recalcitrant male authority figures accountable for providing bandages and medicines to wounded men sent home and those in the field. Evidently, they didn’t take kindly to this “uppity” woman.

Born in 1820, the daughter of immigrants, Elizabeth grew up in the progressive village of Worthington, but endured several traumatic events. As a result, she became an ardent advocate for education and equal rights for women. As Treasurer, she and her friend President Frances Casement from Painesville, revitalized the moribund Ohio Woman Suffrage Association in 1884. That year, Elizabeth also founded the Columbus Equal Rights Association, the first woman suffrage group in Columbus. They met once a month in her home two blocks from the Statehouse at Third and Rich Streets.

In 1894, she and the state organization lobbied and won a bill permitting women to vote in school board elections, a first step. Also during the 1890’s, four states adopted women’s suffrage into their constitutions: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Elizabeth dedicated her life to the advancement of women, but she did not live to see ratification of the Federal “Susan B. Anthony” Suffrage Amendment on August 18, 1920. When Elizabeth passed in 1901, her daughter Belle picked up the torch and carried it to victory.

The program will follow a short business meeting, including election of Society officers, and is open to all. Masks required in the Griswold Center.