Annie Turner Wittenmyer

Born:  August 26, 1827, Adams County, Ohio

Died:  February 2, 1900, Pottstown, Pennsylvania

Resting Place:  Edgewood Cemetery, Pottstown, Pennsylvania

Brief History:  She married merchant William Wittenmyer at age 20 and in 1850, moved to Keokuk, Iowa, and started a Sunday School and a free paid school for underprivileged children in 1853. She also developed a Methodist Episcopal Church congregation from these children and wrote numerous hymns. When the American Civil War began in April 1861 and reports of suffering soldiers reached the home front, she responded by traveling to military hospitals and describing the horrible conditions she witnessed stirred her for local support.

During Wittenmyer's duration as first president of the WCTU (1874-79), the organization was enlarged to over 1,000 local chapters. Wittenmyer strongly was against women's suffrage; like some other women, she believed that venturing into the corrupt world of partisan politics would greatly diminish women's moral authority. Wittenmyer then returned to medical support for veterans and nurses. Wittenmyer died of an asthma attack in Pottstown, Pennsylvania following a speech and was interred in Sanatoga, Montgomery County. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Annie Wittenmyer White Ribbon Award is named in her honor, and in 1949 the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home was renamed the Annie Wittenmyer Home in her honor.