Bay, who, quoting from the decision of Judge Cassody, decided that women had a right to vote provided their ballots were put into a separate box. This case also was appealed to the Supreme Court, where the decision, rendered by Judge William P. Lyon, Jan. 26, 1890, was that the votes of, the women in Oconto County were illegally counted. The ground for this finding was that further legislative action was necessary before separate ballot-boxes could be legally provided. Judge Cassody dissented from this opinion.
The law then became practically a dead letter, except in a few instances, until 1901, when an Act of the Legislature provided for separate ballot boxes for women, and in the spring of 1902 they voted on school questions.
In 1895 the legislative committee, consisting of Mrs. Jennie Lamberson, Mrs. Jessie Luther and Mrs. Alice Kollock, assisted by Mrs. Charlton, secured the introduction of two bills — one to strike the word "male" from the State constitution, the other for a suffrage amendment by statute law. A hearing was granted before the joint committee of both Houses in the Senate Chamber, which was crowded. Mesdames Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ills.), Helen H. Charlton, Nellie Mann Opdale, Ellen A. Rose and Dr. Annette J. Shaw were the speakers.[1] The bills were reported favorably but were lost after discussion. Laws: Dower and curtesy obtain. A widow is entitled to a life interest in one-third of the real estate and, if the husband die without a will, to the share of a child in the personal estate. If there is no lawful issue she has the entire estate, both real and personal. The widower has a life interest in all the real estate of his wife not disposed of by will, or in all of it if the wife died intestate, unless she left issue by a former husband, in which case such issue takes it, free from the right of the surviving husband to hold the same by curtesy. If the wife die without a will and leave no issue, the widower is entitled to the entire estate, both real and personal. There may also be reserved for the widow a homestead of not more than forty acres of farm land, or one-quarter of an acre in a town, which at her subsequent marriage
- ↑ E. P. Wilder, associate editor of the Madison State Journal, chief official organ of the Republican party, made an excellent address at this time in favor of woman suffrage, which was afterwards printed as a leaflet.
