BELLE G. BIGELOW.
BIGELOW, Mrs. Belle G., woman suffragist and prohibitionist, born on a farm in Gilead, Mich., 16th February, 1851. Her education was confined to the district school. She has been from early childhood an omnivorous reader. Her mother died when Belle was ten years old. At the age of eighteen she began to teach. In 1869 she was married to George R. Bigelow, of Ravenna, Ohio. They removed and settled in Geneva, Neb., being the first residents of that place. After eight years of quiet home life, the question of the woman suffrage amendment being brought before the people, she entered into its advocacy. Soon becoming known as a talker and writer on that subject, she was elected president of the county Equal Suffrage Association and sent as a delegate to the State convention in Omaha. There she made her first appearance as a public speaker and her reception encouraged a continuance of work in that line. The next winter, in Lincoln, she was elected to the office of State secretary and traveled over the State in the interest of the amendment, making effective speeches where opportunity offered and awakening much interest in the subject. She was twice a candidate for county superintendent of instruction on the prohibition ticket, and represented the State in the national convention of that party held in Indianapolis in 1888. She has served for five years as secretary of the Lincoln Woman's Christian Temperance Union, being a member of the union in its infancy. She is superintendent of foreign work for the State union, and was elected delegate to the national convention in Boston in 1891. She is known as an interesting writer for the press on both religious and secular topics. She has been the mother of seven children, four of whom are living.