On June 11, more than a century ago, a woman named Jeanette was born.  I like the name Jeanette.  It was my grandma’s name.  And it is my sister’s middle name.  At any rate, the year was 1880.

Jeanette was born…. of all places…  near Missoula, Montana.  Her Mom was a schoolteacher …… Olive Pickering….  and her pop was a Canadian immigrant.  He was also a carpenter, and rancher, and his name was John Rankin.

Jeanette was the oldest of six children including five girls, one of whom died in childhood.

Now… as a child, little Jeanette gained a reputation for doing things most other girls didn’t.   Yeppers, indeed.   She often helped ranch hands with machinery, and once single-handedly built a sidewalk to help her father rent a building.  Way back when.

Jeanette continued her way of  doing things that “girls” weren’t supposed to do…… her entire life.  As it turns out, she grew up to be the first women elected to Congress.

Sure enough.  Elected in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. After being elected in 1916 she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last.”  (She got that right, I’ll tell you.)

A lifelong pacifist, she was one of fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I in 1917, and the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Her entire life was filled with working and doing and being…. a better person….  making things better around her.

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973)
Peace baby.  Peace.

“Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.” – Napolean Bonaparte