Minona Stearns Fitts Jones papers

Sarah Minona Stearns was born in Abington, Massachusetts, the daughter of Catherine Miller Guild and Isaac Holden Stearns (1825-1897), physician and surgeon with 22nd Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. She attended New England public schools and Oak Grove Seminary in Vassalboro, Maine, and completed her education at Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Female College. She studied medicine, and assisted her father in the Milwaukee National Soldiers' Home, where he was a surgeon. She married Robert Clarence Fitts of Leverett, Massachusetts in 1879. The couple had two children: Roy Field Fitts (1881-1961) and Minona Louise Fitts (Thompson) (1887-1976). Beginning in 1892, Fitts opened the Mitchell Heights Millinery Store. It was also around this time that she began to take an active interest in suffrage, women's rights, prison reform, and labor rights, and began attending political gatherings and giving voice to her own political opinions via lecturing and writing. In the mid-1890s, she organized the Milwaukee Equal Suffrage Association and the Waukegan Association, and served as president of both; was elected secretary to the Federal Suffrage Association; and in 1896 was appointed delegate to the 29th Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She also served as National President of the Race Betterment League, founded the No Vote No Tax League, authored the Woman's Declaration of Independence, and founded the Woman's Good Roads Movement in Illinois. In 1897, she left what had become an unhappy marriage and devoted all her attention to her political interests (the children were raised by relatives). The same year, upon the death of her father, she successfully took over advocacy for Civil War veterans through his pension claims business. It was also around this time that she met Frank Warren Jones, whom she married in 1905. Jones remained politically active throughout her life. In 1923, she moved to Spokane, Washington in order to be closer to her son and his family. Jones died in Spokane in 1926.