Eva Anderson
Eva Anderson (Republican) represented [the 12th] district of Chelan County in the House of Representatives for six terms, from
1948 to 1960.
[She was] born in 1889, in Surprise, Nebraska, to a strict and loving Methodist family. Intent on becoming an educator she earned her B.A. at Nebraska's Wesleyen University, and began her teaching career in 1912, after a move to Wenatchee. After teaching for many years Anderson enrolled at the University of Washington and earned her M.A. and Ph.D degrees in Education. Anderson wanted women to take an active role in politics and use their rights: to vote, sit on juries, to hold public office. After serving as the elected County Superintendent of Schools for Douglas County, and Regent for the University of Washington, she decided it was time for more women to enter the State Legislature. Speaking to the Chelan Republican Women's Club in 1948 she said, "The time has come, it seems. when as women we must decide whether we are merely an affiliated sisterhood of the Republican Party or whether we too shall eventually come in from the kitchen and sit down as full partners at the deliberation table." A woman who lived by her convictions, Anderson filed on the Republican ticket.
Representative Anderson characterized her legislative role as similar to a mother shopping for her family; both weigh things in relation to needs, buy the necessities, and if there is money left, buy the luxuries. In the Legislature Representative Anderson fought for better fuding of education, the building of new roads, the first State Commission on Public Utilities, and the development of public power.
-- Political Pioneers, The Women Lawmakers
[She was] born in 1889, in Surprise, Nebraska, to a strict and loving Methodist family. Intent on becoming an educator she earned her B.A. at Nebraska's Wesleyen University, and began her teaching career in 1912, after a move to Wenatchee. After teaching for many years Anderson enrolled at the University of Washington and earned her M.A. and Ph.D degrees in Education. Anderson wanted women to take an active role in politics and use their rights: to vote, sit on juries, to hold public office. After serving as the elected County Superintendent of Schools for Douglas County, and Regent for the University of Washington, she decided it was time for more women to enter the State Legislature. Speaking to the Chelan Republican Women's Club in 1948 she said, "The time has come, it seems. when as women we must decide whether we are merely an affiliated sisterhood of the Republican Party or whether we too shall eventually come in from the kitchen and sit down as full partners at the deliberation table." A woman who lived by her convictions, Anderson filed on the Republican ticket.
Representative Anderson characterized her legislative role as similar to a mother shopping for her family; both weigh things in relation to needs, buy the necessities, and if there is money left, buy the luxuries. In the Legislature Representative Anderson fought for better fuding of education, the building of new roads, the first State Commission on Public Utilities, and the development of public power.
-- Political Pioneers, The Women Lawmakers