clay county histories

Markus Krueger | Program Director  HCSCC

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people walking outside as I have seen this Covid Summer, but perhaps that’s because I’m out more myself. The virus cancelled most of the things we would otherwise be doing, including planned celebrations of the 100th Anniversary of American women winning the right to vote on August 26, 1920. Well, if we can’t all celebrate together, how about we celebrate separately on a pleasant walk through some of Moorhead’s historic neighborhoods? 

The Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County has a free Moorhead Woman’s Suffrage Walking Tour on our website (www.hcscconline.org) and social media. Beginning at the Comstock House, you’ll be guided at your own pace for eleven stops over a two mile walk.

Among the people you will meet are our local heads of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association. Let’s just mention one of them here, MWSA chairman Edith Darrow Godfrey. Her home was where the Concordia College dorm Bogstad Manor East is today, on 8th Street just across the street from the new Comstock Commons building (which itself is built on the site of MWSA chairman Esther Russell’s house). Next door to Edith lived her parents, Dr. Daniel and Alice Darrow, and behind her house was her father’s hospital. 

As the daughter of Moorhead’s pioneer doctor, Edith was part of a respected and socially connected family. Her mother was a founding member of the Moorhead Woman’s Club, so Edith would have grown up listening to local women giving lectures in her home on everything from Ancient literature to contemporary art. She also would have grown up listening to her Aunt Clara Dillon Darrow speaking out for Woman’s Suffrage. Aunt Clara was the founding president of the North Dakota Votes for Women League, and one of the most important reasons why there’s a beautiful new sign on the National Votes for Women Trail in front of the deLendrecie’s Building in downtown Fargo. Clara’s daughters- Edith’s cousins Mary Weible and Elizabeth O’Neil – were also active in the North Dakota Suffrage Movement.  

In 1899, Edith Darrow married a promising young businessman named Joseph V. Godfrey. The name might ring a bell if you’ve been out walking a lot. His maker’s mark is stamped in concrete in Moorhead’s older sidewalks. Sadly, in 1911, at the age of just 36, Joseph died of pneumonia, leaving Edith to raise their ten-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. Thanks to the work of Edith and her fellow Suffragists, both of her children were able to vote when they came of age. And a century after Woman’s Suffrage was achieved, Edith’s town has a majority woman city council and her state sends two women to Washington to serve as our Senators. 

If you’d like to know more about the life and times of Moorhead’s Suffragists and catch a glimpse of what life was like here 100 years ago, pick and nice day and go for a walk on the sidewalks made by Edith’s husband.