Carolyn Pendray
"Carolyn Pendray
was a pragmatic idealist who was able to work with the Legislative
system for the enactment of laws that benefited all but especially
the rights of women." - Miriam C. Diehl, 1978
Carolyn
Pendray, of Maquoketa, was the first female to serve in the Iowa
Legislature. Born in Mount Pleasant in 1881, she was elected
from Jackson County to the House of Representatives in 1928,
two years after women were first allowed to serve in the Iowa
Legislature. She was re-elected in 1930. In 1932, she won a state
Senate seat, unseating an incumbent to become the first woman
to serve in that body. She was the only woman to have served
in both chambers at the time of her death in 1958 at the age
of 76. As a legislator, Pendray cosponsored a bill permitting
a wife to hold certain property of her own, exempt from seizure
for debt. Prior to this law, only the husband was recognized
as head of a household, and only he could claim property exempt
from seizure for debt. Pendray was inducted into the Iowa Women's
Hall of Fame in 1978.
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