Othilia Carroll Beals

Othilia Gertrude Carroll Beals (October 25, 1875 — May 23, 1970) was an American lawyer and judge. She was one of the first two women to graduate from the University of Washington Law School, and to practice law in Seattle, Washington.

Othilia Carroll Beals (1918)
Othilia Carroll Beals, from a 1920 publication.

Early life

Othilia Gertrude Carroll was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Patrick P. Carroll and Sarah Jane Talbott Carroll.[1] Her father was born in Ireland. The family moved to Washington when Othilia was a small child. In 1901, she was in the first graduating class at the University of Washington Law School, and the first woman to graduate from that school (a female classmate, Bella Weretnikow, also graduated that day).[2][3] She also studied violin at the University of Washington.[4]

Career

Othilia Carroll was editor of the journal Pacific Catholic in 1901.[5] After law school, Carroll went to New Orleans and was active in the movement for women's suffrage. She joined her father and brother in a law practice in Seattle until she married in 1904. In 1917, during World War I, she was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in Seattle, filling the seat left when her brother joined the army. She was regularly elected to the bench soon after, in 1918.[6] One of her accomplishments in the law was to establish a small claims court in the state of Washington.[7][8] She announced her retirement from the bench in 1920.[9]

In 1927, she went to Paris[10] as part of General John J. Pershing's "goodwill tour" of Europe, because she was a national vice-president of the American Legion Auxiliary.[11] In 1928, she chaired the Ladies' Committee of the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Seattle.[12] She was president of the University of Washington Alumnae Association, and a founder of both the Seattle Fruit and Flower Mission, and the Seattle Milk Fund.[1]

Personal life

Othilia Carroll married Walter B. Beals, a law school classmate, in 1904. She was widowed in 1960, and died in 1970, aged 94 years. The house they lived in, Westhillsyde in Olympia, Washington, was designed by architects Elizabeth Ayer and Edwin Ivey, and it is part of the Olympia Women's History Walking Tour.[13][14]

References
  1. John William Leonard, ed., Woman's Who's Who of America (American Commonwealth Publishing 1914): 86.
  2. Biographical Note, Photographs of Walter B. Beals, circa 1889-1950s, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
  3. Judith W. Rosenthal, "Bella Weretnikow: Seattle's First Jewish Female Attorney" Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History 18(1)(Spring 2004).
  4. University of Washington, General Catalog (1892): 77.
  5. Polk's Seattle City Directory (1901): 308.
  6. Anne Bigony Stewart, "Seattle Justices of the Peace" The Woman Citizen (December 21, 1918): 617.
  7. Anne Shannon Monroe, "When Women Sit in Judgment" Good Housekeeping (February 1920): 46-47.
  8. Ted Cook, "Legislative Notes" Seattle Star (March 4, 1919): 8. via Newspapers.com
  9. "Woman Judge Retires" Santa Ana Register (February 19, 1920): 1. via Newspapers.com
  10. "Legion Auxiliary Officers Who Will Attend Paris Convention" Evening Review (August 20, 1927): 13. via Newspapers.com
  11. "National Head of Auxiliary Visiting Here" Santa Ana Register (August 8, 1927): 4. via Newspapers.com
  12. "Seattle Semi-Centennial Committee Appointed" American Bar Association Journal 14(2)(February 1928): 61.
  13. "Westhillsyde (Allen/Beals House)" Olympia History.
  14. "Statement of Significance", Inventory Report, Allen House (2014).
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