She was born in Wurtsboro in 1865, and although she was a prominent figure in the women’s suffrage movement in New York State, it took weeks of research to find her given name, and years more to uncover a portrait. A woman so dedicated to making the world a better place deserved much better.

She was Bella R. Montgomery, and despite the significant role she played in the fight for women’s suffrage in New York State, in dozens of articles in numerous newspapers of the day, she was always referred to as “Mrs. C.W. Montgomery”. It was only in an obituary for her husband, Charles William Montgomery, in the Scarsdale Inquirer in November of 1929, and in her own death notice in the New York Times in June of 1939, that her first name was mentioned.

She was the daughter of Charles D. and Isabelle Beech Immen of Wurtsboro, both of whom died in 1917, which was, ironically, also the year of Bella’s greatest triumph. Her father was a Civil War veteran who had served for a time as president (mayor) of the village of Wurtsboro, and also as water commissioner, as well as on the Board of Trustees for the Wurtsboro school. Mrs. Montgomery lived much of her life in Scarsdale, N.Y. where she raised a son, Verne-- who later attended Hamilton College in upstate New York—and found time to help the Women’s Club of Scarsdale start the Scarsdale Inquirer weekly newspaper in 1919, and to serve as president of the local chapter of the League of Women voters in 1926.

She served multiple terms as the President of the Sullivan County Assembly District of the New York State Women’s Suffrage Party and in that position hosted many notable suffragists from around the country, including Margaret Foley and Helen Todd, taking them to meetings from one end of Sullivan County to the other. On Saturday night, July 28, 1917, Mrs. Montgomery was the featured speaker at a rally hosted by the Wurtsboro Suffrage Club at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.W. Drew in the village. The Sullivan County Record newspaper reported that her speech was “so compelling” that “each man, with a single exception, not only contributed, but with his contribution gave a promise to vote ‘yes’ on the suffrage amendment on November 6.”

On Sunday, October 28, 1917, Mrs. Montgomery made arrangements for Helen Todd, who had traveled here from California in a last ditch effort to secure victory for the women’s suffrage amendment in New York’s November 6 election, to speak to church congregations in Callicoon, Fremont Center and Hankins, and then over the next week accompanied her in campaigning in Monticello on October 31, in Woodville, Tennanah Lake, Roscoe and Rockland on November 1, in Grooville, DeBruce, Willowemoc and Livingston Manor on November 2, in Bradley, Neversink, Claryville and Eureka on November 3, and in Liberty on November 5.

It was that kind of tireless work by Mrs. Montgomery and others that won women the right to vote in New York that year. It may have been her greatest accomplishment but was not by a longshot her only one.

Leslie Chang, a trustee of the Scarsdale Historical Society, was researching Bella Montgomery a few years ago, when she learned of her work on behalf of women’s suffrage from a special section the Barryville-based nonprofit history education group, The Delaware Company, had done for this newspaper in 2020, which caused her to dig more deeply into that aspect of Mrs. Montgomery’s life. She was impressed with what she found. “If this list of leadership roles is any indication, we can see why The Scarsdale Inquirer called her one of Scarsdale’s “most prominent women,” she wrote on the Historical Society’s website, before listing the following:

• Founding member of the Scarsdale Equal Suffrage Club
• Charter member of the Scarsdale Woman's Club
• Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of Westchester County for 13+ years
• Chair of the Club’s Scarsdale Inquirer Reporters Committee
• Member of the Westchester County Democratic Committee for 50 years
• Vice-Chair of the Scarsdale Democratic Committee
• Member of the American Committee for the League of Nations Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair

“I’m proud to shed light on her forgotten story, filling in some of the missing pieces so she can be rightfully remembered as one of New York State’s pioneers of the women’s rights movement,” Ms. Chang wrote.

It was Ms. Chang who tracked down Bella Montgomery’s great-grandson, Peter Montgomery, in Illinois in an attempt to find out more about the woman and her life. “He didn’t know very much about the Scarsdale Montgomerys,” she wrote. “In fact, he didn’t know Bella was a suffragist.”

Peter Montgomery did share some family photos with Ms. Chang, which she was gracious enough to share with this columnist, and this collaboration has added immeasurably to the documentation of the life of a deserving woman from Sullivan County.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian and President of The Delaware Company. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.