Gasque, Elizabeth Hawley, 1886-1989

<p>Elizabeth H. Gasque, the first woman U.S. Representative from South Carolina, carried on a lifelong love affair with Washington’s social scene. The death of her husband, Representative Allard Henry Gasque, briefly added a political dimension to her activities. “She was a Congressman’s wife 20 years and a Congressman’s widow,” one journalist wrote in 1939, “who wound up his affairs and took care of his district as though it were her life’s work.” Thereafter, she never broke her ties to the city.</p>

<p>Elizabeth Hawley Gasque was born Elizabeth “Bessie” Mills Hawley near Blythewood, South Carolina, on February 26, 1886, daughter of John Meade and Emina Nelson Entzminger Hawley. Bessie Hawley was a member of the southern aristocracy and spent her childhood on the expansive “Rice Creek” plantation, which covered 4,000 acres. She attended the South Carolina Coeducational Institute in Edgefield, South Carolina, and graduated with a degree in expression (drama) from Greenville Female College (now Furman University) in 1907. She married Allard H. Gasque, a teacher and school administrator, in 1907, and they had four children: Elizabeth, Doris, John, and Thomas. Bessie Gasque became interested in politics through her social connections. Later she would boast that she had been personally acquainted with every President from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1923 Allard Gasque won election to the first of eight terms as a U.S. Representative from South Carolina, eventually becoming the chairman of the Committee on Pensions and a champion of war veterans and their families. It was during her husband’s congressional service that Bessie Gasque fell in love with Washington, plunging into the social scene. She became one of the regular hosts of an annual ball to raise funds to fight polio, held on President Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday. Washington became her “natural home.”</p>

<p>Chairman Gasque entered Walter Reed Hospital in Washington in May 1938 and died there on June 17, the day after the 75th Congress (1937–1939) adjourned. At the time of his death, Gasque was unopposed for reelection. The district encompassed eight counties in northeastern South Carolina, including Gasque’s home county of Florence. State and local Democratic leaders persuaded Bessie Gasque to run for her husband’s unexpired term; even the filing fee was provided for her. In the perfunctory one-party special election of September 13, 1938, Elizabeth Gasque succeeded her late husband in little more than name. The election took place on the same day as that for her successor. John Lanneau McMillan, a former secretary to Allard Gasque, was elected to the full term in the 76th Congress (1939–1941). The 75th Congress had already adjourned, and although there was always the possibility that the President would call for a special lame duck session, observers considered that highly unlikely. She captured 96 percent of the vote compared to a combined four percent by her two male Democratic opponents.</p>

<p>Elizabeth Gasque Van Exem (February 26, 1886 – November 2, 1989), named Elizabeth Hawley Gasque during her tenure in Congress, was a Congresswoman from South Carolina, the first woman elected to Congress from that state.</p>

<p>She was elected to the House of Representatives on September 13, 1938, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Congressman Allard Henry Gasque. She never actually attended Congress, which was not in session during her months of office.</p>

<p>She served from 1938 to January 3, 1939 and was not a candidate for re-nomination. Mrs. Gasque later was an author and lecturer and was the longest lived member of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. The Social Security death records say she was born in 1893, under her later married name of Van Exem. However, census records support the 1886 birth year.</p>

<p>She died aged 103 in Ridgeway, South Carolina where she lived.</p>

<p>In 1982, a section of South Carolina state road was named the Elizabeth Gasque Van Exem Highway.</p>