Willa Eslick (née McCord Blake; September 8, 1878 – February 18, 1961) was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, wife of Edward Everett Eslick and the first woman to represent Tennessee in the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

Biography

Born in

Fayetteville, Tennessee Fayetteville is a city and the county seat of Lincoln County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 6,994 at the 2000 census, and 6,827 at the 2010 census. A census estimate from 2018 showed 7,017. History Fayetteville is the largest cit ...

, Eslick was the daughter of George Washington and Eliza McCord Blake. She attended private schools, including Dick White College and Milton College in

, as well as Winthrop Model School and Peabody College in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

. She also attended the Metropolitan College of Music and Synthetic School of Music in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She served as a member of the Tennessee state Democratic committee, and was the first woman elected to Congress from Tennessee. She married Edward Everett Eslick on June 6, 1906.

Career

Eslick was elected as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

to the Seventy-second Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death in office of her husband, Representative Edward Eslick. Eslick served as a Representative from August 14, 1932, until March 3, 1933. She was not eligible for reelection to the Seventy-third Congress, not having qualified for nomination as required by state law.

Death

Eslick died on February 18, 1961, in

Pulaski, Tennessee Pulaski is a city in and the county seat of Giles County, which is located on the central-southern border of Tennessee, United States. The population was 8,397 at the 2020 census. It was named after Casimir Pulaski, a noted Polish-born soldier ...

, at age 82 years, 163 days. She is

interred Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

at Maplewood Cemetery. She was a member of the American Association of University Women, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the

United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

, and the

Order of the Eastern Star The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic appendant body open to both men and women. It was established in by lawyer and educator Rob Morris, a noted Freemason, and adopted and approved as an appendant body of the Masonic Fraternity in 187 ...

References

External links

Office of the Historian
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eslick, Willa Mccord Blake 1878 births 1961 deaths Female members of the United States House of Representatives Women in Tennessee politics Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee People from Fayetteville, Tennessee

Biography

Career

Death

See also

References

External links