July 14 , 2020 I www.ggrwhc.org  I 616-574-7307
Visiting EBK & Remembering Seneca Falls 
This week we pay tribute to the early suffrage movement. It lasted a long time—from 1848 to 1920--and it went through several distinctive periods. On Thursday we will honor Michigan’s greatest leader at her gravesite and on the 19th and 20th recognize the event that launched the long fight, the Seneca Falls Convention.
Esther Visser & Emily Burton Ketcham
Honor the woman dubbed “Michigan’s greatest suffragist,” Emily Burton Ketcham, on July 16th, 2020, and meet her local descendants! Between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm on Thursday at Rosedale Memorial Park in Standale, we will gather informally at Ketcham’s grave site on the anniversary of her 1838 birth in Grand Rapids. Read more about Ketcham in our feature for Women’s Lifestyle Magazine and read about culmination of her career in 1899 here . Ketcham was responsible for the biggest suffrage event ever in Michigan!

Ketcham died early in 1907 and, like her friend Susan B. Anthony, did not live to enjoy the right to vote. To honor her, please mask up, plan on social distancing, and perhaps bring a chair, a drink, and one or more flowers. Even a single stem would be a lovely tribute to this local suffrage pioneer, state leader, and liaison from Michigan to the national movement. Handouts will be available and questions answered, as we gather casually to celebrate during the month before the centennial of the 19th Amendment—and the week of the Seneca Falls convention. Read on! 
Ketcham grave marker
You will find Rosedale Memorial Park in Standale, three or four blocks west of Wilson Avenue on the south side of Lake Michigan Drive. Use the entrance that continues 1st Avenue into the cemetery—then round a grass island and continue straight south a very short distance. We’ll be on the left at the Ketcham family site. If you use another entrance, just look across the way for the gathering! If it’s hot, there is shade near the gravesite. If you bring flowers, water will be available. Speaking of water: maybe bring an umbrella, just in case. Hope to see you!

Ketcham died early in 1907 and, like her friend Susan B. Anthony, did not live to enjoy the right to vote.
Monument: Mott, Anthony, and Stanton
When Emily Burton Ketcham was ten years old in 1848, the following was published in the New York Seneca County Courier : “A convention to discuss the social, civil and religious rights of woman will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, Seneca Falls, Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July.” 
 
While abolitionists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among the organizers, another early suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony was not in attendance. Fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass was. Once Anthony was involved in 1851, she fought on for women’s suffrage over fifty years. Most people don’t know that voting rights were not on the original agenda. Suffrage rights, however controversial, were added later to the famous Declaration of Sentiments, causing some signers to withdraw their signatures.
 
Get the facts! And scratch the surface of information about the famous Seneca Falls women’s rights convention here !
NWHA Valiant Women of the Vote
On Saturday, July 18th, at 1:00 pm the National Women's History Alliance will recoup its March celebration virtually and on the eve of the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. Honoring the League of Women Voters, their "Valiant Women of the Vote" program will emphasize the importance of voting and include guest speakers and musical performances. Find details about registration here .
During this challenging year, the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council has pivoted to virtual salutes after losing in-person celebrations of the centennial of the 19th Amendment. We have rededicated ourselves to honoring the long and costly battle for the universal right to vote at the same time we pause to reconsider how we will more fully and effectively embrace all of our community’s women’s histories.
 
Please continue to celebrate with the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council virtually and in print! Watch for us via this electronic newsletter, follow us on Facebook, find our monthly features in  Women’s Lifestyle Magazine , and sign up for our hard-copy newsletter, if you haven’t already – at ggrwhc.org ! Stay tuned, stay safe, and stay exercised!
Stay home and stay safe--but celebrate with us virtually and in print! 
GGRWHC |   www.ggrwhc.org   | 616-574-7307
Hats off to the historical women who have shaped West Michigan!
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