Jenckes, Virginia Ellis, 1877-1975

Virginia Ellis Jenckes (November 6, 1877 – January 9, 1975) served three terms as a U.S. Representative (March 4, 1933 – January 3, 1939) from Indiana's Sixth Congressional District. The Terre Haute, Indiana, native was the first woman from Indiana to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Alongside Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy, she was the second woman Representative from the Midwest and the first who was not succeeding a male relative.

Born Virginia Ellis Soames in Terre Haute, Indiana, she attended public schools in Terre Haute including Wiley High School, where she enrolled at the age of eleven and became the youngest student in the school’s history. She left high school early to complete her formal education by taking two years of courses at Coates College for Women. In 1912, she married Ray Greene Jenckes, a Terre Haute farmer and grain dealer; together, they managed a 1300-acre farm along the Wabash River in rural Vigo County, Indiana. After her husband's death in 1921, Jenckes inherited the farm along with his grain business and assumed sole responsibility for their management. Owing to frequent river flooding, Jenckes took an active role in flood-control efforts after she and other local farmers organized the Wabash-Maumee Valley Improvement Association, serving as the association's secretary until 1932.

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