Tulsa's Women in Law The Honorable Martha Rupp Carter

History is often the result of who remembers events and persons and acts to memorialize those memories. Although sometimes elusive and imperfect, history can inspire, instruct, and light the way forward for those who follow. The history of Tulsa's women lawyers is made of just such stuff. It may be imperfect or incomplete, but nonetheless inspires and teaches. It is powerful and humbling to learn of our pioneer sisters, their grit and audacity as they paved our way and allowed us to see what is possible as women lawyers, judges, mentors, benefactors, and persons of quality and worth. marking 100 years of the 19thAmendment. Endowing account of sex. spanning seventy-two years and three generations of combat. An Oklahoma suffragist actually died fighting for the Sate’s ratification of the 19th Amendment. Miss AloysiusLarch-MillerwasseriouslyillwiththeSpanish influenza in February 1920 and had been instructed by her doctor to remain in bed. She instead summoned her strength to make an impassioned plea in a county convention debate for a special legislative session to address Oklahoma’s ratification. She defeated her debate opponent with her eloquence and logic. After stirring her audience to action, she went home and died two days later. The Oklahoma legislature made ratification of the 19th Amendment on February 27, 1920, her memorial.

Reflection on Tulsa's rich heritage of women in the law

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by any State on Ratified August 18, 1920. We laud fierce, dedicated women from everywhere in this special year of 2020 women with the right to vote afforded women the fullest recognition of citizenship.

Securing women’s right to vote was a brutal affair isafinewaytocelebratetheenfranchisementofwomen. When Grace Elmore Gibson was admitted to the bar in 1929, and began trying cases before juries, women had not yet been granted the right to serve on them. Ms. Gibson’s view of women serving on juries was different from the prevailing view of the time, that women’s emotionswouldmaketheirdecisionsforthem. Herview was instead that women would add a new dimension to decision-making in jury trials. The regard of Ms. Gibson’s male colleagues might have been indicated by the Tulsa County Bar Association’s selection of her to serve for several weeks in a district judgeship for a vacationingjudge. Shewastappedin1936byGovernor E. W. Marland to sit on the Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals in the embezzlement case against a county judge. This honor led to the first opinion ever written by a female member in that appellate court, an opinion in which the two other judges concurred. Ms. Gibson was active in political and community affairs, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives, served in World War II as director of the Women’s Contact Corps of the Office of Civilian Defense to marshal women volunteers to assist in the civil defense area in Oklahoma. She was appointed in 1944 by Tulsa’s Mayor to serve in the post of city treasurer, the highest non-elective city post to be held by a woman up to that time.

In 1942, Tulsa women lawyers Louetta Bellamy, Jewell Russell Mann, and Maude Rounsaville joined with three Okmulgee women lawyers to successfully appeal a decision denying their client her statutory widow’s allowance based on provisions in an antenuptial contract. In re Rossiter’s Estate, 1942 OK 211, 129 P.2d 856. The holding was that a provision in an antenuptial contract purporting to waive the statutory right to a widow’s allowance is against the state’s public policy and is void.

Louetta Bellamy Dick, who passed the bar in 1925, and Jewell Russell Mann and other women lawyers of their time continued making good trouble. They worked on securing the passage of the “eight major state offices amendment,” which permitted women to hold the eight major state offices in Oklahoma, and on the “woman juror bill,” which made women eligible to serve on Oklahoma juries.

Ms. Dick was actively involved in community affairs and assisted many young women in gaining a higher education so they could achieve their goals. Jewell Russell Mann authored a Tulsa County Bar Association resolution upon her friend Ms. Dick’s death, describing the great loss created by her passing, and, recognized “but all are much richer for the life which she lived, and all will cherish her memory.”

Jewell Russell Mann was admitted to the bar in 1928 when only three female attorneys practiced in Tulsa. She accepted a job as secretary upon graduation from law school, advising: “You had to accept it. Now I tell young women applying for jobs not to mention the can type.” Ms. Mann, along with Mildred Brooks Fitch, Norma Wheaton, and Dorothy Young brought an original action in the Oklahoma Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of a bill in In re House Bill No. 145, 1951 OK 288, 237 P.2d 624. The 1951 holding that the legislature had the authority to revise the qualifications of jurors expressed in the original statute by eliminating the disqualifications of women to serve on juries was happy news. The generic word “men” included women.

Ms. Mann ran for judicial office in 1966, losing by less than 2000 votes. She was an activist for women and for women’s rights in all contexts, from deploring state protective laws decreeing women could work no more than 54 hours in a week, to her appointment by President Richard M. Nixon to an advisory committee onwomen’srights,tourgingwomenshouldbesubjectto the draft following her appointment to Tulsa’s Selective Service Board.. She was active in her community and her church, retiring from the practice in 1985.

Ms. Mann was actually pointed out to me at a massive cattle call docket in the earliest days of my practice. A male attorney directed my attention in the crowded courtroom to smallish older woman who was wearing a hat; Ms. Mann, he said, always wore hats. His attitude toward her was most respectful as he tried to explain who she was and why her presence impacted me. I will always regret the timidity that blocked me from walking over and meeting this amazing woman lawyer pioneer. Jewell Russell Mann was described as a “good attorney, one who gave good advice” who was often requested by her contemporaries, “Slow down, Jewell, we need to catch up to you.”

NormaFrazierWheatonwasadmittedtothebarin1927, continuing as a lawyer in the law firm where she was initially employed as a secretary, becoming a partner in 1947. She worked for ten long years to secure the rights for women to serve on juries before the success in In re House Bill No. 145 and the primary election in 1952.

In 1942 when the highest office a woman could hold in Oklahoma was that of department head, Ms. Wheaton spearheaded legislation to amend the Oklahoma Constitution to grant women the right to hold the state offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, attorney-general, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, and state examiner and inspector. State Question 302 addressing the qualifications for elective officers, including allowing women to run of office, was adopted in a 1942 general electiondueinlargeparttoherefforts. Ms.Wheatonwas elected the first woman president of the Tulsa County Bar Association in 1946. She was the first woman on the Oklahoma Bar Association BoardofGovernors,thencalled the Executive Council. She was active and prominent in theAmerican BarAssociation.

Dorothy Young was admitted to the bar in 1928 and was Tulsa County’s first woman judge when Governor Murray

appointed her judge to the juvenile court, where she served from 1954 until 1966.

The good trouble fashioned in their time by Grace, Louetta, Jewell, Maude, Mildred, Norma, and Dorothy, and the friends and supporters they met along the way, earnsanddeservesourrespectandadmiration. Thehopes supporting their collaborations, friendships, strategizing and plotting, ambitions and dreams, and the strength of their collective will endure to the present. We hope the accomplishments of our times make them proud.

Asmall sampling of women lawyers who follow in their steps is briefly described, with apologies for the many amazing Tulsa women lawyers whose histories have failed to be included.

Imogene Harris - following graduation from University of Tulsa College of Law in 1958 with the highest grade point average in her class, she was one of the first women attorneys hired by a major Tulsa oil company and as Assistant City Attorney for the City of Tulsa. Phyllis Zimmerman provided legal services in the adoption of more than 5000 children over five decades in Tulsa. Norma H. Eagleton was the first woman to hold a voting position in City of Tulsa as its Commissioner of Finance and Revenue, and first woman to serve as Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner. The Honorable Stephanie K. Seymour was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The Honorable Margaret Lamm was the first woman trial judge in Tulsa County when appointed as a special judge in 1970. She was elevated in 1972 as District Judge, the first woman in Oklahoma to so serve. The Honorable Claire V. Eagan was Tulsa's first woman United States District Judge of the Northern District of Oklahoma. TheHonorableMille Otey(ret.)-Tulsa'sfirstWoman President of the Tulsa County Bar Foundation. N. Kay Bridger-Riley co-founded Tulsa Women Lawyers Association in 1980, and was the first woman to chair OBA Young Lawyers Division. Her service as Chair and connection formed in her extraordinary service to the ABA resulted in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appearing in Tulsa. The Honorable Doris L. Fransein was the first woman Tulsa municipal judge, later providing extraordinaryserviceasChiefJudgeofTulsaCounty District Court’s Juvenile Division. The Honorable Dana L. Rasure, Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, was the first woman to be appointed to serve as a bankruptcy judge in Oklahoma. Anne B. Sublett was co-founder and former President of Tulsa Lawyers for Children, Inc., formed to recruit, train lawyers to provide pro bono services for abused, neglected and deprived children before Tulsa District Court's Juvenile Division. The Honorable Jane P. Wiseman is a founding member of the board of director of the Oklahoma TrialJudgesAssociationandservesontheOklahoma Court ofAppeals. Catherne M. Cullem served the University of Tulsa College of Law as its Interim Dean and Vice Dean following her thirty year teaching career with the College. She is now a staff attorney for the Honorable Deborah B. Barnes, Oklahoma Court of CivilAppeals. Linda Martin served as a senior woman partner in Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson, was one of only three women to be confirmed by the Oklahoma Senate to serve on the Oklahoma Mining Commission, and is a founding member and former president of the Tulsa Women LawyersAssociation. The Honorable Martha Rupp Carter is the first woman Tulsa City Attorney and first Oklahoman International Municipal Lawyers Association Local Government Fellow. Renee DeMoss isTulsa's first woman Oklahoma Bar Association President and former president of the Tulsa County BarAssociation. Deirdre Dexter, Faith Orlowski, the Honorable Ann KeeleareformerPresidentsoftheTulsaCounty BarAssociation.

Mary Frances Edmonds is an Assistant General Counsel with the Williams Companies, generous with her time and talents in support of women and diversity. Pamela Shelton is Senior Litigation Attorney with Williams Companies and a strong supporter and mentor to young corporate women lawyers.

The Honorable Dana Kuehn serves on the Oklahoma Court of CriminalAppeals. Mary Quinn Cooper is a partner of McAfee and Taft and serves as national trial counsel for major corporations and defends product liability claims and class actions across the country. Martha Cordell served University ofTulsa School of Law as its Associate Dean for Student Affairs, mentoring and advancing many young women lawyers over the years. Teresa Meinders Burkett is a partner in Conner & Winters healthcare practice group after working through law school as a cardiac care nurse. She is as well as a tireless volunteer for numerous civic groups. Kimberly Hayes is former President of the Oklahoma Bar Association and a leader in family law practice, serving in state and local family law sections. Kathy R. Neal practices employment law and is a frequenttrainer,lecturer,andwriteronemployment issues. Sheservesasanadministrativeemployment law judgewith theOklahomaDepartment of Labor. Janet Levit serves as Interim President of the University of Tulsa, and formerly as Dean of the University of Tulsa College of Law. Elise Dunitz Brennanpracticeshealthcarelawand is the first Oklahoma attorney elected as a Fellow of theAmerican Health LawyersAssociation. Christy Caves is the Executive Director for the Center for Career Development and Professional EngagementfortheUniversityofTulsa. Sheworks actively to involve law students in bar activities. Elizabeth C. Hocker served as Executive Director of Tulsa Lawyers for Children, Inc., a nonprofit formed to recruit and train volunteer attorneys to represent abused, neglected or abandoned children. During her tenure she increased the number of volunteer attorneys and funding for the organization. Amy Santee is the senior program officer for the George Kaiser Family Foundation and has directed resources in the areas of female incarceration and criminal justice reform including Women In Recovery and Still she Rises, Tulsa. The Honorable Sharon Holmes is the first African American woman District Judge for the Tulsa County District Court and has presided over some of the most difficult and high profile criminal cases in Tulsa County. Christina M. Vaughn serves as attorney general for one of the large Indian tribes in Oklahoma, is admitted to numerous tribal courts, and is a past President of the Tulsa County BarAssociation. Rebecca Nightingale is the first woman Presiding Judge for the Tulsa County District Court completing her predecessor’s term as well as her own two year term. Rachel Blue practices intellectual property law and has mentored women law students for more than a decade with her “Off the Record” event bring women law students and women practitioners and judges together.