Kansas

Women in Kansas have demonstrated many of the same daring attributes as their counterparts in other western states. During the 19th century Kansas women led the nation in the female suffrage movement and were the first to vote in municipal elections. In the 20th century women like Amelia Earhart and Olive Beech paved the way for female prominence in the nation's aviation industry.

Some of the first women came to Kansas to pursue the traditional role of teacher, first among the native peoples and later among fellow white settlers. Rose Philippine Duchesne pursued her lifelong goal of working with the Indians when she came to southeast Kansas in 1841 at the age of 72. Despite her own ill health, she led a group of Sacred Heart nuns to an area about 70 miles southwest of Kansas City to work in a Jesuit mission. She impressed the Indians, who called her The Woman Who Prays Always. She lived there only a year, but for her cumulative life's work she was beatified in 1940.

Mary Bridget Hayden came to southeast Kansas in 1847 as part of a group of nuns who were going to work with Indian girls at the government school in Osage Mission, near present St. Paul. Most of her life was dedicated to this school and the Catholic girls' school that succeeded it. Sister Mary Bridget journeyed by boat and lumber wagon along with two other nuns to southeast Kansas. When she took over as mother superior in 1859, they had 73 girls and taught academic subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic along with sewing and housekeeping skills.

Civil war-era violence forced the nuns from the school in 1863. They were able to return in 1867, but the Indians had moved south to Indian Territory. Two Catholic schools replaced the Indian school in 1870, and Mother Mary Bridget was put in charge of St. Ann's Academy for girls. The school earned a widespread reputation, with students coming from as far away as Texas to study art and music. A few Indians still attended the school, and the Sisters of Loretto sometimes used some of their own funds to send them on for further education. Mother Mary Bridget worked until her death in 1890. After fire destroyed all the school buildings, the sisters left the Osage Mission in 1895.

Eliza McCoy may not have been the first Protestant missionary in Kansas, but she was one of the first to leave a detailed accounting of her experiences on the Kansas prairie. McCoy's uncle was one of the organizers of the American Indian Mission Association, and in 1844 McCoy and her long-time companion, Sarah Ann Osgood, applied to become missionaries. Osgood would work her entire life with the Wea Tribe near Paola. McCoy went to work with the Potawatomie Indians approximately 50 miles southeast of Kansas City. Barely surviving a tornado before her departure, McCoy was appalled at the horrible living conditions and drinking she found when she arrived in Kansas. The Indians were moved to another location 60 miles west of Kansas City and the missionaries followed, only to be greeted by a rundown house and a snowstorm. After her uncle's death, she experienced a decline in funding and greater competition from nearby Jesuit missionaries. McCoy gave up her work with the Indians within a year of her [Page 164]partner's death and went to teach in Indiana and died in Dallas in 1891.

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