photo by: Courtesy of League of Women Voters

A new grave marker for Lizzie S. Sheldon will be placed at Oak Hill Cemetery.

A new grave marker for a prominent Kansas suffragist will be dedicated next month at Lawrence’s Oak Hill Cemetery, according to a news release from the League of Women Voters for Lawrence and Douglas County.

The marker is for Lizzie S. Sheldon, who was born in 1851.

photo by: Courtesy of League of Women Voters

Lizzie S. Sheldon

According to the Kansas Historical Society, Sheldon was a lawyer, staunch Democrat and an advocate for women’s right to vote and hold office. She graduated from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1900 and 11 years later lobbied the Kansas Legislature and wrote a concurrent resolution on suffrage. Democratic Sen. George H. Hodges introduced the resolution, and it passed for a constitutional amendment. Gov. Walter R. Stubbs, whose wife, Stella, was a member of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, signed the amendment, according to the historical society.

Kansas women won full suffrage when the amendment was approved in November 1912.

Sheldon was also the first woman to run for a Kansas Supreme Court seat. She lost the election by only 13 votes but continued to use her legal expertise and was known in Lawrence as the city’s “most zealous reformer.” She died in 1942 at the age of 91.

The marker dedication will be from 1 to 2 p.m. on Nov. 1 at Oak Hill Cemetery. Attendees can bring chairs and are urged to park along the road between Sections 14 and 13, then walk north to the south side road of Section 12 near the brown trash can.