Fox, Ruth May

Fox was born to a married couple who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) five months after her birth. Her mother died in 1855 and her father was then sent away on church work, so until she was about eight she was raised by a succession of other LDS families, friends and relatives.

In about 1865 she followed her father to America, eventually settling in Utah, where she married in 1873 and had 12 children. Her husband took a second wife and Fox was left largely on her own to raise her family. She ran a boarding house, then became a secretary in the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association, eventually rising in the organization to become its third president (1929-37). She was also an active suffragette, president of the Utah Women's Press Club, and a local Republican Party official. She died aged 104.

References

Women's Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, edited by Kenneth W. Godfrey, et al. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1982)
Thatcher, Linda. "I Care Nothing for Politics:" Ruth May Fox, Forgotten Suffragist," Utah Historical Quarterly, 49 (Summer 1981) pp. 239-53
Thatcher, Linda. "Ruth May Fox." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.mormons.org/daily/history/people/fox_ruth_eom.htm