Over this election cycle, there has been frequent talk about women, notably the fact that we had a female candidate, the photos of the lines of people waiting to put an “I Voted” sticker on the grave of Susan B. Anthony, the controversial comments about women.  Several times I have wondered who was the first woman in my family to vote?  When was that?  I don’t see any suffragettes in my female genealogy and am more inclined to believe that the women in my family did what their husband told them to do.  Until we get to my mother.  She was strong.  But in a quiet way.  She was not afraid to express her opinions or take advantage of options presented to her.  Quietly and with strength.

Today, as I sat and absorbed the election results, I needed to get off social media and distract my mind.  I perused some of the blogs listed on my old blog list.  Many haven’t posted in months but I looked back over the last year, just to find something interesting that would make me think.  I found this post from Planting Dandelions.  It is about finding her female line.  It made me think.  I have never really paid much attention to the line of mothers and grandmothers as I delved into my genealogical research. I followed names and history, mostly male but some female lines.  What about the mothers and grandmothers? What would that look like for me?

So I did some research.  Starting with my mother, I looked at her mother and grandmother.  Then I kept going.  Until I couldn’t anymore.  Here is what I found:

Me – Tere Cunningham Priest

My Mother – Annette McKnight Cunningham (1940 – 2005)

Her Mother (on right) – Ezma Cansler McKnight (1912 – 1992)

Her Mother – Flossie Bennett Cansler (1890 – 1991)

Her Mother – Necie Lantrip Bennett (1853 – 1929)

Her Mother – Mary Ann Menser Lantrip (1830 – 1904)

Her Mother – Dorothy Croft Menser (1804 – ?)

This was an interesting exercise for me.  While I have strong, loving relationships tying me to my mother and grandmother, as well as my great-grandmother, these are not the women in my history, other than my mother, who fascinate me the most.  I loved them deeply and respected them beyond measure for the hard lives they lived.  But I am fascinated by some of the other women throughout my family tree.  Women who dealt directly with war, literally in their backyards.  Women who lost children and husbands to war, sickness, fire.  Women who wrote everything down so generations later we know something about them and their lives.  Strong women who took what life gave them and lived the best life they knew how.

But these women are my direct line, mother to mother.  I am descended directly from them in a straight line.  Suddenly that means more to me.  I owe it to myself to find out more about them than I knew yesterday.  These are country women.  The other side of my family was made up of families who were part of the birth of our nation with fathers who were doctors, statesmen, and landowners.  Those women were educated and kept diaries.  Many in my mother’s line may not have known how to read and write.  But those families were also a part of the progress of our nation.  They were the ones who left and moved across the wilderness to make better lives for their families.  They settled in primitive areas and farmed the rocky land, the women and children right beside their husbands and fathers.

I want to know more.