The Women in our Lives

Don, our Operations Manager, is involved with a whole lot of things. He is in charge of the Store operations, our volunteer coordinator, program development, business sponsor program, events director and likely a number of other things not coming immediately to mind. He is among the hardest working, best organized people I've known in a lifetime of work. He's the "lone stranger" in today's photos.

Along with Don, I'm helping to develop our Women's History Day (August 23) into something beyond its original origins as a Living History program. We are hoping that a young woman of immense talent we know will provide some musical entertainment that day and I just got off the phone with a prominent women's history author whom we hope to bring to the event as a speaker as well as a book-signer. A fascinating conversation!

March is Women's History Month, but as Fort Walla Walla Museum is not open to visitation that month, it is difficult to create a proram at that time. Perhaps in the future when we can call ourtselves a year 'round museum that will change. We choose August for our event in order to call attention to Women's Equality Day August 26, established in 1971 by Rep. Bella Abzug. The day is in honor of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the constitution guaranteeing American women the right to vote.

The core of the day is to highlight the women in our Living History Company and have them tell of womens' lives from the eras their characters lived in. In past years we've featured the wife of the community's first mayor, an Indian woman who was among the first women to own property in this region (let alone among the first Indian people to do so), a leading suffragist, a former slave, and pioneer women of many backgrounds. Last year we featured one of the more enterprising businesswomen of her day, Josphine 'Dutch Jo' Wolfe, operator of an upscale bordello in early Walla Walla.

The Museum alters its usual rates of admission for the day; all girls 12 and under receive free admission and all adult women pay 77% of the going rates as a reflection of the disparity in men's and women's wages that still persists today. We also supply the lemonade and cookies ... pioneer women would always entertain in that fashion when receiving guests.