On July 4, 1916, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren donned military-style leggings and leather riding breeches. They threw their legs over the seats of their 1,000cc Indian Power Plus motorcycles and revved their engines. The women rode 5,500 miles in 60 days from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California, to prove that women could serve as military dispatch riders. By proving women were capable of serving in the military, they hoped to remove one of several lame excuses to deny women the right to vote. On their cross-America traverse, they were arrested numerous times for wearing men’s clothes.
Augusta and Adeline’s efforts perhaps paved the way for Methow Valley’s own May Ellen Libby Smith, born on at home along Twisp River Road in 1918. I met May in 2017, when she was 99 years old. Talking about her life experiences, her eyes lit up as she said, “Let me tell you about my good-time job, and when I met Eleanor Roosevelt.” During WWII, May worked at the Vancouver shipyards, driving a Harley Davidson motorcycle. You can read more about her story in the Methow Valley News archives, here https://methowvalleynews.com/2017/11/22/lower-valley-november-22-2017/.
My, how far we’ve come. Or have we? On July 1 of this year, Tennessee enacted a state law making it a felony for “male or female impersonators” to be in public — a similar law used to prosecute the Van Buren sisters for wearing pants in 1916. In Tennessee and other states, a convicted felon is ineligible to vote. In over a dozen states, it is a felony for a woman to seek a medically necessary procedure. I’d state the procedure, but that is between a woman and her doctor. Are these laws about protecting Americans, or is it about dishing out felony convictions to control who gets to vote?
Earlier in June, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker gave an unforgettable commencement speech at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He said, “… when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so, their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades … Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true — the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”
Our country may feel divided with neighbors and families at odds. We’ve been here before. On July 4 we celebrate independence from oppressors, freedom from terror, and the right to vote to keep those freedoms, freely. I deeply believe we will eventually reach a more equitable, peaceful society, based on governor Pritzker’s observations of an advanced society evolving from kindness.
On July 4 the Methow Store will hold an open house from 3:30-6 p.m. for locals to drop in and see the progress being made in the store, which is not officially open for business yet.
The annual Pateros Apple Pie Jamboree begins July 14. Visit www.paterosapj.org to sign up for the run, parade, 3-on-3 basketball, or to be a vendor. Call or text Tracy Miller at (509) 449-0596 or email tracymiller36@gmail.com for more information.
