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Part of the American
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Zerelda Gray Wallace 1817 ~ 1901
A self-made woman in every sense of the
word, was Mrs. Zerelda Gray Wallace, reformer and suffragist.
She was born in Millersburg, Bourbon County, Kentucky, August 6,
1817, the daughter of John H. Sanders and Mrs. Polly C Gray
Sanders. Her father was of South Carolina descent and her mother
was of the Singleton family. She was the oldest of five
daughters and received as good an education as could be had in
the Blue Grass region schools of those early days. At a sale of
public lands in Indianapolis, then the frontier, her father
purchased his homestead and after leaving Kentucky his daughters
had only limited opportunities for education. Mrs. Wallace,
however, assisted her father in his practice and became
interested in medicine. She educated herself by reading works on
hygiene, mental philosophy and other subjects, and was
acquainted with many prominent men. In 1837 she became the wife
of Honorable David Wallace, soldier and jurist and then
lieutenant-governor of Indiana. In 1837 he was elected governor
of the state and in 1840 he went to Congress as a Whig. During
his term Mrs. Wallace spent some time in Washington with him,
ever urging him to vote against the Fugitive Slave Law, and she
shared all his reading in law, politics and literature. At the
time she married, Mr. Wallace was a widower with a family of
three sons, and six children were born to them. This large
family Mrs. Wallace reared, carefully cultivating their
particular talents and developing all their powers in every way.
All her living children have succeeded in life. Her husband's
children by the first wife included General Lewis Wallace, the
soldier, scholar, statesman and author of the immortal "Ben
Hur' and General Wallace never referred to her as
"stepmother,'' but always as mother. She was one of the first of
the women crusaders, and joined the Women's Christian Temperance
Union, in which she did much valuable service. She spoke before
the Temperance legislature in advocacy of temperance, and was
soon after lecturing before them in favor of women's suffrage.
As delegate to temperance conventions she addressed large
audiences in Boston, Saratoga Springs, St Louis, Detroit,
Washington, Philadelphia and other cities. She lived to a
splendid old age, her physical and intellectual powers
unimpaired, and recently died in Indianapolis surrounded by her
children and grandchildren.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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