Marie Stuart Edwards

[5] In 1914, the family moved into the Shirk-Edwards House, a Classical Revival and Victorian dwelling located at 50 North Hood Street, Peru, Miami County, Indiana, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

At a WFL meeting in 1918, Edwards entreated members to resume lobbying for the passage of a constitutional amendment, as the "withdrawal of voting privilege has enormously increased the number of women interested in suffrage" and "we can never again be the negligible quantity we were before."

Under her guidance, the organization undertook an extensive membership drive and a petition for the federal amendment, training speakers and canvassers, which had 283 branch leagues across the state by October 1918.

When Indiana became the 26th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on January 16, 1920, Edwards was sitting in each chamber of the General Assembly while each body voted.

In the latter position of authority, she served as a member of the Indiana Committee on Mental Defectives, a state-sponsored eugenics organization pushing a "better babies" agenda and conducting studies of families in more than 20 counties.

[10][11] Edwards led the local Works Progress Administration board in Miami County during the Great Depression, while also serving as chairman of the 10th Anniversary and Memorial Fund of the League.[5] ???

[1][5] "Marie made a 1930 nationwide tour on behalf of the League to increase fund raising; this committee reached the goal of $250,000 despite the onset of the Depression.

[12] Marie Stuart Edwards was honored with a bronze statue in front of the Peru Public Library, where she trained and organized fellow suffragists in her hometown.