Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510140005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH STROTHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Oh, not literally. Literally, she's the daughter of a nurse who worked at Lewis-Gale Hospital and a blacksmith who worked for the Norfolk & Western Railway, a foreman for a long time at the East End Shops in Roanoke. "Neither was even vaguely interested in politics."
But she, their only child, is the president of the League of Women Voters of the Roanoke Area and an unpaid lobbyist for the state organization at the General Assembly. The league was formed by the suffragists to educate women once they finally - after a mere 72-year fight - won the right to vote.
So, figuratively, Phyllis is a daughter of those courageous women who endured the censure of most of society for most of their lives to legally establish the standing of women as full human beings, at least regarding the basic right to vote in a democratic society.
Now, some of you may be thinking "femi-Nazi" right here. I, who find the linking of "feminist" and "Nazi" to be oxymoronic, wondered myself what heated political controversy prompted Phyllis to join the league.
Seven children, she told me wryly.
Born and raised in Roanoke, she moved several times with her husband, following his job with C&P Telephone to Northern Virginia, West Virginia, D.C. She was housebound, too busy with seven kids even to glance at The Washington Post till lunchtime, when a TV ad for the league caught her eye.
So you had developed an interest in politics by then? I asked.
"I was dumb as a post.
"That was partially what attracted me when I did join. The league was formed to educate women by suffragists, to teach people who are unaware what's going on."
She was a little hesitant. "I felt, 'Maybe these women will be too smart for me.' ... They were very smart. But they were also just other women like me" - except many were people she would not have met in daily life, women of different backgrounds, economic status, jobs. They were, in a word, "wonderful."
When her husband retired and they moved back to Roanoke, she followed what had become her well-established routine for settling into a community:
"First thing I do is register to vote, then I send my dues to the league, and then I get my library card."
I had gone to D.C. in August to walk in the 75th anniversary march celebrating women's suffrage, and got the biggest kick out of seeing a horse-drawn carriage bearing a handful of surviving suffragists over the parade route. I marveled at these sweet-faced, delicate ladies, decked out in the white flounced dresses and purple sashes of turn-of-the-century Suffragettes, smiling shyly and waving with gentle dignity as they passed the cheering crowd.
These fragile women, I reminded myself, are tempered steel.
I called Phyllis, hoping she would know someone hereabouts who had been in the movement - some radical from Roanoke or Rocky Mount or Riner who had rocked the power structure with a shocking insistence that women were capable, mature adults - well, as often as men, anyway. She knew of no one.
But as I talked to her, I was struck by how fitting a successor she was to those down-to-earth, no-nonsense pioneers. The suffragists struggled to get the vote. The league struggles to get people to vote. Neither is a crusade for cynics.
Even if folks don't want to get involved with the league, she says, "When they're turned off about something, they should do something about it. ... Get it straight who it is that has something to do with what's wrong, and do something about it." Phone calls and letters have more impact than an individual might imagine, especially when they are not part of an orchestrated campaign by some interest group.
"As one person doing one thing, nobody has an impact," Phyllis conceded. "You never know how many other people are moved to do what you do. How many people are sitting at home saying one vote makes a difference?
"As long as we're alienated from our government or our community, we don't think of ourselves as part of a whole, we think we can't make any changes."
And if complaints get the attention of politicians, why "the delegates and senators would fall off their chairs if anyone called to say that was a great speech or vote." It just isn't done.
"There are plenty of people up there [in the General Assembly] who try real hard - of both political parties - to do what they think is right."
This year being the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage, and all, not to mention a pivotal election year in Virginia politics, perhaps a supermajority of citizens will vote ... I'm itching to add, cynically: but I doubt it.
I do doubt it. In 1994, only about 45 percent of the eligible women voters nationwide went to the polls - discouraging considering the long, difficult struggle of those women who went before, who believed so passionately that to vote is an essential freedom. After talking to Phyllis, I'm thinking cynicism is maybe a guilty pleasure that the political system cannot afford in large doses.
Despite the wrong turns we sometimes take in something as complex and vexing as governing, we can stay on a reasonable course if we care enough to pay attention, and to vote. If it were hopeless, "I wouldn't bother messing with it, I guess," Phyllis said. And she's been studying on it a lot of years.
by CNB