Mary E. Metzgar

[1] For many years, Metzgar was identified with social movements in her home city and State, being particularly active in temperance and charitable work.

She also served as vice-president of the Illinois State Union, and held at different times the offices of State superintendent of the Purity, Law Enforcement, and Legislative departments of Union work, as well as that of District superintendent.

She also helped pass the scientific instruction bill in public schools, as well as the bill by which the state of Illinois appropriated US$5,000 for a statue of Frances Willard in Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.[2] She kept up her work even after her health failed.

[1] In 1867, she married Marcellus R. Metzgar, of Port Byron, afterward removing to Davenport, Iowa, (1881) and then to Moline, Illinois (1884).

[2] Mary E. Metzgar died in Moline, Illinois, April 11, 1919,[1] the cause of death being a poor state of health following a stroke of paralysis a few years earlier.