ELIZABETH HAYWARD
President 1902-1904
Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward was born on a snowy December 23, 1854 of pioneer parents, Philip and Martha Roach Pugsley. She was the eldest girl of a large family and had to help in rearing her siblings. When her father went to night school to help him learn bookkeeping, she went with him, as schooling was not something all kids got to do. She also learned dressmaking and made clothes for her family both male and female.
She enjoyed socials, dances and plays at Social Hall where she met Henry Hayward whom she married on her twenty-first birthday in 1875. They moved into a two room adobe house build by Henry.
She lost two children and a brother to the diphtheria epidemic. In the next 20 years, seven more children were born, but scarlet fever and diphtheria took all but three. After the death of so many of her children, she did public service work, for which she was devoted. She was President of the Mothers Club at Washington School. During World War I, she was a member of the War Mothers Group, which later became the Service Star Legion. She was also a member of Salt Lake City's first Library Board and a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
On March 3, 1887, the Edmund-Tucker law disenfranchised the women of Utah. Intended as a weapon against polygamy, it denied the rights to all women. Elizabeth vowed to do something about getting back the vote. During a western states conference, Susan B. Anthony and Anna Shaw attended. The Governor promised, “When the new state constitution goes to the votes, it will contain a woman’s suffrage clause.”
She held many offices with the Women’s Democratic Club, was one of the few women delegates to attend the Democratic National Convention in 1908 and again in 1920, became the Vice President of the Women’s Suffrage Association in 1913, a position she held for 6 years, served as Democratic National Committeewoman for Utah from 1916-1920, was a charter member of the Legislative Council of Women, was elected to the Utah House of Representatives and served from 1915-1917 and elected to the Utah State Senate and served from 1919-1921. She had the honor of being the first woman to preside over the Utah State Senate and it is believed she was the first woman accorded this honor in any state of the Union.
One of her major interests during her legislative career was woman suffrage. In 1915, Elizabeth introduced a resolution endorsing national suffrage in the Utah House of Representatives. In 1919, as a state senator, she introduced a resolution ratifying the National Suffrage Act. In recognition of her work in this field, her home was included in the National Voters' building in Washington D.C.
In 1938, she was accorded a place of honor in Salt Lake City's feminine "Hall of Fame", for a record of outstanding civic achievement. In the Salt Lake Tribune article, she is described as a staunch suffragist, yet decidedly no feminist. She said, "Women should keep in mind that they are still young at this new business of freedom and that most of them are not yet prepared for the rights the feminists sought." However, she challenged women saying,
"Some women have attained success because they have decided what they want to do and have gone ahead and done it."
She passed away at age 87 in 1942 and is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
Adapted from the Biography of Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward obtained from the Utah Archives and supplemented with information from the Salt Lake Tribune Article, Active Life Marks Elizabeth Hayward, published February 16, 1938.