Jenckes, Virginia Ellis (1877–1975)

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Jenckes, Virginia Ellis (1877–1975)

American congressional representative, member of the 73rd–75th congresses (1933–39). Born Virginia Ellis on November 6, 1877, in Terre Haute, Indiana; died on January 9, 1975, in Terre Haute, Indiana; daughter of James Ellis and Mary (Oliver) Somes; educated at public schools in Indiana; married Ray Greene Jenckes, on February 22, 1912 (died 1921); children: Virginia Ray Jenckes (died young).

Virginia Ellis Jenckes was born on November 6, 1877, in Terre Haute, Indiana. She attended public schools there and, after her marriage in 1912, helped her husband manage their 1,300-acre farm. Jenckes took full responsibility

for the farm's operation after becoming a widow in 1921. She was a founder of the Wabash and Maumee Valley Improvement Association and served as its secretary from 1926 to 1932. In 1932, however, she switched from farming to politics and ran for Congress as a Democrat. Her platform focused on the troubles of the local economy caused by the Depression and addressed the need for federal aid to help with flooding problems. She was also in favor of repealing Prohibition as a stimulus to the economy. With her daughter Virginia serving as her driver, Jenckes campaigned throughout the district during the race, which, due to a recent redrawing of districts, included both Democratic and Republican incumbents. She defeated each of them, in the Democratic primary and in the general election, thus becoming the representative for Indiana's Sixth District.

During her three terms, Jenckes served on both the Committee on Civil Defense and the Committee on the District of Columbia; she also served on the Committee on Mines and Mining in her first two terms. When Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs began providing some relief from the Depression, Jenckes turned her focus to supporting the FBI. She was also concerned that children within the Washington, D.C., public school system were being propagandized into an acceptance of Communist doctrine. In 1937, she was a U.S. delegate to the Interparliamentary Union in Paris, France.

Jenckes lost the 1938 election to Republican Noble Johnson but remained in Washington for decades, working for the Red Cross. In 1956, she played a role in helping five priests escape from Hungary during the uprising there. In the early 1970s, Jenckes returned to Terre Haute, Indiana, where she died in 1975 and was laid to rest in Highland Lawn Cemetery.