Ramona Resident Was First Woman to Run for Congress

Considering how many women politicians there are today, and how many are serving in the U.S. Senate and Congress, it makes one wonder how it all got started. Helen Stoddard was part of that movement.

Women won the right to vote in 1911. Soon after that, Stoddard, then living in La Mesa and president of the San Diego County chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, declared her intentions to run for California’s 11th District seat in U.S. Congress. She was a candidate for the Prohibition Party and the first woman to seek a national office.

The 11th District covered all of San Diego County at that time. Stoddard, one of four candidates for the seat, didn’t win the election, but she did garner 1,327 of the 20,867 votes cast. The winner was William Kettner, another prominent figure in San Diego’s history.

Stoddard geared her campaign toward women voters, claiming, “A Vote for Helen M. Stoddard is a Vote for the Home.” After losing the election, she continued to work for the causes in which she believed.

A year later, Stoddard, along with her son, Robert, and his wife, Stella, moved to Lemon Grove, where they stayed for the next decade. Seeking a better climate for her son’s health, they moved to Ramona in 1923. While Helen continued her work in the WCTU movement, Robert became a farmer, raising chickens and turkeys at their property on I Street.

The house, with large bay windows overlooking the athletic field at the old high school (now ), has had many owners since Stoddard and her family lived there, but it is as much a showcase today as it was the day it was built. At the time, it was the only two-story house in Ramona.

Stoddard hosted WCTU meetings in her home for the women of Ramona. She frequently visited the local elementary schools, warning youngsters against the perils of alcohol and tobacco.

Stoddard was elected president of the California state chapter of the WCTU in 1920, the same year she was a state delegate to the Congress Against Alcoholism in Washington D.C..

Stoddard had given up her teaching career when she became president of the Texas state chapter of the WCTU, a position she held from 1891 to 1907. She had been on the faculty of Fort Worth University.

In 1901, Stoddard was instrumental in establishing a women’s industrial arts college in Denton, Texas. It is now Texas Women’s University. Stoddard Hall, a three-story building on campus, was named in her honor. There were two buildings named Stoddard Hall. One was a dormitory and the second is home to the College of Professional Education.

Stoddar and her daughter-in-law, Stella, returned to Texas following Robert’s death in 1936. He died at their home in Ramona at age 62 and was buried at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego. Stoddard died in Texas four years later. She was 90. Her body was brought back to San Diego to be buried near her son.

Sheboygan, Wisconsin was Stoddar's hometown. She was born in 1850. She earned a teaching credential at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, graduating in 1873 as class valedictorian.

She married Sheppard D. Stoddard the same year. They had two sons, one of whom died in infancy. The family moved to Florida for Sheppard’s failing health. When he died in 1878, Stoddard and her young son moved to Texas to be near her parents.

During her lifetime, she lived in Wisconsin, New York, Florida, Nebraska, Texas and California. But it was her 13 years in Ramona that were remembered most by the young girls with whom she shared her beliefs.

Helen Stoddard history was researched at La Mesa Historical Society.