Politics

Born before women could vote, this Anchorage 101-year-old reflects on casting a ballot for a woman president

Rita Foy was born in 1915.

She was 5 years old when women gained the constitutional right to vote in the United States. 

On Tuesday, at 101 years old, she walked downstairs in her Anchorage assisted living home and voted for a woman to become president of the United States.

The changes in the span of her lifetime leave her dizzy, and glad.

"I got to vote for a woman before I leave this world," she said from her tidy room at the Anchorage Pioneer Home.

Foy, who has a sweep of snow white hair and a gentle voice, was born in Illinois. The child of an immigrant from Ireland, she grew up in a family that voted Democrat.

As an adult, her life took her to Seattle and then to live closer to family in Anchorage about 13 years ago. She has been a resident of the Pioneer Home, which is also the polling place for her downtown district, for seven years.

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She always followed politics. The first election she can remember voting in was the second term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the span of her century, there had been more than one presidential first that once seemed impossible: "I've lived long enough now to see an Irish Catholic become president, and a black man," she said.

Growing up, when Democrats lost her father urged reconciliation.

"Dad said, 'Well, we lost. But we will respect the man who becomes our president.' "

On Tuesday morning, Foy was hoping for a Clinton win, but said she would receive a potential Trump victory with the same attitude.

"Well, I'll have to accept it," she said. "And I won't have to accept it for too long," she said with a laugh. "But I hope she makes it."

 

Loren Holmes

Loren Holmes is a staff photojournalist at the Anchorage Daily News. Contact him at loren@adn.com.

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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