Wilmans, Edith Eunice (1882-1966), was the first woman elected to the Texas legislature. Wilmans, a Democrat , served in the Texas House of Representatives for one term, from 1923 to 1925. She was a lawyer and activist for women’ssuffrage (voting rights) in Texas.
Edith Eunice Therrel was born on Dec. 21, 1882, in Lake Providence in northeastern Louisiana. In 1885, her family moved to Dallas . She married Jacob Hall Wilmans in 1900. The couple had three daughters.
In 1914, Edith Wilmans helped organize the Dallas Equal Suffrage Organization. She also became a leader in Democratic Party organizations for women. She studied law to find ways to improve the legal status of women and children. In 1918, she became one of the first female attorneys in Dallas.
In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gave women the right to vote and to hold political office. In 1922, eight Texas women ran for the state legislature. Only Wilmans won. As a representative, she proposed laws to increase school funding and to aid children and families.
On Jan. 1, 1925, Texas Governor Pat M. Neff appointed Wilmans and two other female attorneys as justices of a special state Supreme Court. The court was formed for one specific land dispute case. The state’s regular Supreme Court justices—and nearly all the state’s male lawyers—belonged to an influential group involved in the case, so none of them could serve as justices when the case came before the court. On Jan. 5, however, Wilmans resigned because she had not yet practiced law for the full seven years required of Texas Supreme Court justices. Another woman replaced her.
Wilmans ran for office several more times but was unsuccessful. She continued to work as a lawyer until she retired in 1958. She died on March 21, 1966, in Dallas.
