Inez Milholland (Boissevain)
(1886–1916) Inez attended Vassar College, where she excelled in track and field and drama. It was at Vassar that she first became active in the fight for women's suffrage. When the college refused to allow speakers on womens' suffrage to appear on campus, Inez organized a rally in a local cemetery. Vassar suspended her for this, but she was not deterred. After graduating from Vassar in 1909, she earned a degree in labor law from NYU and became a respected attorney. In March of 1913, the day of Woodrow Wilson's presidential inauguration, 8,000 suffragists marched for their cause in Washington D.C. Inez Milholland, dressed in white robes and riding on a white horse at the head of the parade made a powerful and striking impression on the crowd. Later she became one of the leaders of the Congressional Union for Women's Suffrage, as well as the movements most popular public speaker.
Additionally, Inez was a co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P. On October 16, 1916, while giving a speech against Woodrow Wilson in Los Angeles, she suddenly collapsed. Inez Milholland lived with pernicious anemia, which had worsened due to her demanding speaking schedule and near constant travel. Ten weeks after her collapse, she died. She was thirty years old. Her last public words were famously, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" She was the wife of Dutch businessman Jan Boissevain. Her sister, Miss Vida Milholland, was also a Suffragist buried in the same cemetery.
Lewis (Center) Cemetery
Pines: Go to the top of the hill
933 Fox Run Road, Elizabethtown, NY 12932
Essex County