The Index-Journal from Greenwood, South Carolina • Page 20

8B-Trte Indn-Joumel, Or nwood, 8.C.. March 16, 188S CAN'T AFFORD A SECRETARY but stilt need to protect a prolsss tonal Image? Our range of services can serve this purpose for a fraction of Itie cost. Call Executive Services. 229-0786, Suite 216, Park Plaza Building. SPECIAL EVENTS Private Luncheons Wadding Cocktail Parties BrcaldaM Meeting On and off pwmlwi catering lor group of 20 or mora.

THREE TEN MAIN 229-0122 Mary Gordon Ellis S.C's first woman senator ments, Mary Gordon Ellis, a remarkable fighting spirit, died and was buried in Williamsburg Cemetery at Kingstree. GET A HEADSTART IN GREENWOOD Don't waste time trying to find your way around Greenwood. Call us, we're with WELCOME WAGON. When you've just moved and pressed for time, we can help. The gifts, community and business information we will bring will save your family time and money.

Let us hear from you soon. Where else can you 9 your rough frocks cut into beautiful 1J y. gemstones? only at jk f( Certifiable Assets 229-6699 Ollie Watson 2224So Coosawatchee. They had three children. Mary Ellis kept house, kept books for her husband, and raised her children.

Wher her first child, Elizabeth, was old enough to attend school, her mother was alarmed at school conditions. Jasper schools were so poor that she could not bring herself to send her children to them. She boarded her children in Savannah with relatives and determined to do something about the Jasper situation. In 1924 Mary Gordon Ellis ran for superintendent of education for Jasper County and was elected. Almost her first act was to close the numerous small schools and consolidate the county into five districts.

She organized a governing board with representatives from each district. Mrs. Ellis was the only woman college graduate in Jasper County. Hoping to attract better teachers to the isolated low-country county, she saw to it that a teacherage was built. She required teachers to get further training, often meeting on Saturday, and invited state department officials to send instructors for her inservice programs.

She recognized nepotism on the county board of education and fired some of the local trustees. She got matching funds to build four Rosenwald schools in the county. (Julius Rosenwald, head of Sears Roebuck, provided By LOUISE PETTUS AND RON CHEPE8IUK Wlnthrop College faculty Mary Gordon Ellis (1890-1934) holds the distinction of being South Carolina's first woman Senator. She was elected from Jasper County in 1928 and served a four-year term and was reelected for a second term. There was not another woman in the 5outh Carolina Senate until Elizabeth Johnston Patterson was Selected Dec.

4, 1979 to fill the unexpired term of James Stephens of Spartanburg. When Mrs. Ellis, then Mary Gordon, finished Kingstree High School in 1909 she taught at Sutton's School for one year. It was a time in South Carolina when few rural schools could afford, or even obtain, college-trained teachers. Mary Gordon must have determined that year to go to Winthrop College for the training she knew she needed.

There were 10 children in her family. A dining room scholarship )nade it possible for her to graduate in 1913 with an A.B. degree, which at that time was also a lifetime certificate to teach in South Carolina schools. Her first teaching position after graduation was as teaching principal of Gillisonville School in Jasper County. That winter she married Junius Gather Ellis, a farmer and turpentine operator of rr (2 Radio Shaclt matching funds to build black schools in the South.) Some of the local funds came from benefits and ice cream suppers Mrs.

Ellis organized. She hired Mary Alice Miller, a black Columbia University graduate, to supervise the black schools. She campaigned for better textbooks in black and white schools alike. Mrs. Ellis really upset the whites when she insisted that not only should white children have school buses but that black children should have them, too.

Local citizens had enough trouble with the idea of hiring a driver who only worked part of the day. The Jasper County house member, H.K. Purdy, a young lawyer, wrote Mrs. Ellis a letter telling her that she was fired. Mrs.

Ellis immediately went to Purdy's father-in-law and showed him the letter. The old doctor advised her to sit tight and not give in an inch. She then went to Purdy and told him she would not resign and that she would oppose him in the next election. In the summer of 1928 Purdy filed for the South Carolina Senate. Mary Ellis followed him into the courthouse and filed for the saame seat.

There was a runoff and Mary Ellis won. The first woman in the Senate perplexed the men. For one thing, they did not know what to call her. Senatoress? Senatrix? Should she keep her head covered or not? Mrs. Ellis, for her part, was more interested in participating fully in Senate business.

The records show that she debated, proposed bills, made amendments, and served on numerous committees. The record would do honor to any senator or "senatoress." In 1934, after 10 years of battling cancer with radium treat EXTRAORDINARY GRAPHICS, PLUS HIGH SPEED Sale! The 256K Tandy 2000 MS-DOS Computer With 2 Floppy Disk Drives QlflBGD (mm Save 600 CELEBRITY CIPHER Reg. 1599.00 jfl "i --i It-j 1 Celebrity Clphar cryptograms ara crMM trom quotation by famous paopla. past and prat each istlar In tna dpnar stands for anothar Today's chjm- mqum by CONNIE WIENER With 10-Meg Hard Disk 18999S Reg. 2499.00 Save s600 BMM GHMW LGW'K URCM KG iuMip LRBHUIPB INNMTKRGW.

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