Othilia Gertrude Carroll Beals (October 25, 1875 — May 23, 1970) was an American lawyer and judge. She was one of the first two women to graduate from the
University of Washington Law School
The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington.
The 2023 '' U.S. News & World Report'' law school rankings place Washingto ...
, and to practice law in
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
.
Early life
Othilia Gertrude Carroll was born in
, the daughter of Patrick P. Carroll and Sarah Jane Talbott Carroll.
[John William Leonard, ed.]
''Woman's Who's Who of America''
(American Commonwealth Publishing 1914): 86. Her father was born in Ireland. The family moved to Washington when Othilia was a small child. In 1901, she was in the first graduating class at the University of Washington Law School, and the first woman to graduate from that school (a female classmate, Bella Weretnikow, also graduated that day).
[Biographical Note](_blank)
Photographs of Walter B. Beals, circa 1889-1950s, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. She also studied violin at the University of Washington.
Career
Othilia Carroll was editor of the journal ''Pacific Catholic'' in 1901. After law school, Carroll went to New Orleans and was active in the movement for women's suffrage. She joined her father and brother in a law practice in Seattle until she married in 1904. In 1917, during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, she was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in Seattle, filling the seat left when her brother joined the army. She was regularly elected to the bench soon after, in 1918. One of her accomplishments in the law was to establish a
small claims court
Small-claims courts have limited jurisdiction to hear civil cases between private litigants. Courts authorized to try small claims may also have other judicial functions, and go by different names in different jurisdictions. For example, it may b ...
in the state of Washington. She announced her retirement from the bench in 1920.
In 1927, she went to Paris as part of General
John J. Pershing
General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Wes ...
's "goodwill tour" of Europe, because she was a national vice-president of the
American Legion Auxiliary
The American Legion Auxiliary (ALA) is a separate entity from the American Legion that shares the same values. Composed of spouses, mothers, daughters, granddaughters, and sisters of American war veterans. Founded in 1919, the ALA is dedicated to ...
.
["National Head of Auxiliary Visiting Here"](_blank)
''Santa Ana Register'' (August 8, 1927): 4. via Newspapers.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
In November 2018, ...
In 1928, she chaired the Ladies' Committee of the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Seattle. She was president of the University of Washington Alumnae Association, and a founder of both the Seattle Fruit and Flower Mission, and the Seattle Milk Fund.
Personal life
Othilia Carroll married
Walter B. Beals, a law school classmate, in 1904. She was widowed in 1960, and died in 1970, aged 94 years. The house they lived in, Westhillsyde in
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region.
European ...
, was designed by architects
Elizabeth Ayer and Edwin Ivey, and it is part of the Olympia Women's History Walking Tour.
"Statement of Significance"
Inventory Report, Allen House (2014).
References
External links
*
A photograph of Othilia Carroll Beals in her 70s
at a University of Washington Alumni Association event, in the collection of the University of Washington Libraries.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beals, Othilia Carroll
1875 births
1970 deaths
Lawyers from New Orleans
American women in World War I
University of Washington School of Law alumni
20th-century American judges
Washington (state) state court judges
Lawyers from Seattle
American suffragists
20th-century American women judges