REAL PEOPLE. REAL STORIES.

Minnie Grinstead

(1869-1925)

The election of 1919 brought a woman into the Kansas House of Representatives for the first time in the state's history.

Grinstead, a forty-nine year old Republican, was born in Crawford County, graduated from the State Normal at Emporia, taught school for a dozen years, lectured for WCTU, and was married to Judge Virgil H. Grinstead. She served a total of three terms in the state house of representatives. At first the men of the house were skeptical, to say the least. "They believed," reported the Kansas City Star (November 17, 1920), "that Mrs. Grinstead would be a 'fussy' member, and that she would scold and find fault, and 'nag' them for smoking cigars. They had visions of having to speak in whispers when they wished to express their thoughts in the plain Kansas language."

Although Representative Grinstead did oppose tobacco use and introduced a bill to strengthen the state's anti-smoking statute, she impressed those with whom she served, and in 1921 three additional women joined her in the Kansas House of Representatives. The new women would, again according to the Star, "give her [Grinstead] support in her demands about the housekeeping side of lawmaking." The others were: Minnie J. Minnich, Sumner County, Republican; Miss Nellie Cline, a lawyer and Democrat, Pawnee County; and Ida M. Walker, Norton County, Republican, associate editor of Norton's Real Westerner.

Grinstead chose not to seek a forth term in 1924. Instead she sought and was elected probate judge in her hometown of Liberal, the position she held at the time of her death, December 24, 1925.