Sarah Abby (Bray) Thurston
Born: West Gloucester, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1848. Married: John Winthrop Thursday, Rockport, Massachusetts, May 1, 1871. Died: December 18, 1918.
Sarah Abby Bray was born to Samuel and Sally (Thurston) Bray in West Gloucester, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1848. She attended Salem Normal College in Salem, Massachusetts, graduating in 1866. Sarah taught at West Gloucester High School for three years. She married first cousin John Winthrop Thurston in Rockport, Massachusetts, 1871. The couple moved to Topeka, Kansas, that year where they were both hired to work at Bank of Topeka. They had no children.
John was a bank officer. Sarah was a clerk and worked at the bank for 13 years. She was hired as a Shawnee County notary public in 1883. She became heavily involved in the Topeka community charitable organizations. She co-founded with other Topeka women the Ingleside Association in the 1880s to benefit working women and children. She was a founding member and trustee of the Kansas Waifs' Aid Society in 1892 at a time of economic downturn.
Thurston responded when Laura Johns organized the Woman’s Republican Association in 1893. Lobbying activities in the Kansas State Capitol that winter placed Johns and Thurston at the center of the Legislative War. Governor Lorenzo Lewelling was sympathetic with the People’s Party, or Populists, claiming a majority in the Kansas House of Representatives. Republicans claimed election fraud and established competing leadership. The Populists took control of the house hall, locking out Republicans. The state militia refused to support the governor’s orders and Republicans deputized hundreds of supporters to storm the Capitol and take control. Meanwhile, Johns, Thurston, and other lobbyists, reporters, and workers were forced to find refuge in the lower floor of the statehouse. They spent their time encouraging lawmakers to put a woman’s suffrage amendment on the ballot. The legislative fight eventually ended when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Republicans, just in time for a shortened session to conclude. That ballot measure passed, and the amendment was set for the November 1894 election. The Kansas Equal Suffrage Association conducted a vigorous campaign to support the amendment, bringing to Kansas national leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman-Catt. Thurston, as assistant chair, was credited as a core member of the campaign. The fight between the Populists and Republicans caused a fissure in the national suffrage movement, with party platforms of the former supporting woman’s suffrage and the latter opposing. Johns and Thurston caught the ire of suffrage leaders and the initiative failed much to the disappointment of supporters.
Sarah Thurston formed Earl Van Kirk formed a business partnership in 1901 to operate an abstractor of titles service in the Crawford Building, Van Kirk died in 1904, and she continued on her own. Thurston’s community activities continued; as a member of Current Literature in Topeka in 1905, she told members, “To write a good paper you must read and continue reading until you are full of your subject then writing is the easiest thing in the world for you to do.” She returned to advocate voting rights for women during the 1912 campaign. Thurston served as treasurer for the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association that year and chaired a committee to revise the state charter of the organization. Their efforts succeeded this time, making Kansas the eighth state to provide full voting rights for women.
The Thurstons returned to Massachusetts in 1917. Sarah died in Gloucester, Massachusetts, at the age of 70 on December 18, 1918.
Entry: Sarah Abby (Bray) Thurston
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: December 2024
Date Modified: December 2024
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