Page 47 - Waves June

president of the Wednesday Club from
1909 to 1911.

Until the Galveston hurricane of 1900,
her life interests revolved around those
women’s organizations that filled the
leisure hours of the ladies of “polite so-
ciety.” Although she would have claimed
that these groups were of noble purpose,
in fact, all but one (the Johanna Runge
Free Kindergarten) did little to amelio-
rate conditions of poverty in the city,
nor did they seek to bring about reform
either within the city or for women. But a
change in the city’s fortunes transformed
women’s private and organizational lives.

The storm of 1900 brought the worst
kind of social disorder. In its wake,
Memorial tombstone of however, emerged the Women’s Health
Betty Ballinger in Galveston. Protective Association, the most effective
of all the women’s associations. Though
Courtesy of Patti it was organized to give a decent burial to
Zapalac Photography. the victims of the storm who were not
cremated, the WHPA remained active Memorial tombstone of Betty Ballinger
Statuary Hall at the Capitol in Washington. The from 1901 to 1920 as a progressive re- in Galveston. Courtesy of Patti
Zapalac Photography.
project was completed in 1903. form association. Its members worked to
revegetate the island, to enact updated city her to take an active interest in the suffrage
By 1912 Betty Ballinger had become a staunch building ordinances, to institute regular movement. At the age of sixty-eight, she and
supporter of woman suffrage. Her interest in inspection of dairies, bakeries, groceries, several younger women spoke before an au-
various women’s associations, including other and restaurants, to eliminate breeding dience of 150 people for the right of women
hereditary patriotic organizations, led her to seek grounds for flies and mosquitoes, and to to vote.
membership in the Daughters of the Ameri- establish medical examinations for school
can Revolution and the Texas Society Colonial children, hot-lunch programs, public play- She served as the first vice president of the
Dames. grounds, and well-baby and tuberculosis Galveston Equal Suffrage Association in
clinics. 1912. Her ability to develop from a Southern
She contributed to her church (First Baptist lady to a progressive activist helped open the
Church of Galveston) by serving as president Betty Ballinger quickly became involved in way toward greater public roles for women in
in 1892 of the Woman’s Aid Society, and to the the WHPA, which she served as the cor- the future of Texas. Betty Ballinger died on
Johanna Runge Free Kindergarten by becoming responding secretary in 1909. This shift March 23, 1936, in Galveston.
a charter member in 1898, by serving on the to reform activities no doubt influenced
board of directors, and by taking up the duties
of corresponding secretary in 1912 and 1921.
She was also a member of the board of trustees
of the Rosenberg Library.

In the same year that the DRT was established,
Betty, her sister Lucy, and Mrs. Maria Cage Kim-
ball founded the Wednesday Club, one of the
first women’s literary clubs in Texas and an early
affiliate of the General Federation of Women’s
Clubs. Although initially organized for the study
of Shakespeare, Balzac, Hugo, and other literary
giants, the club had turned by 1912 to “sociolog-
ical” topics: “Women in Industry,” “Modern Ed-
ucational Movements,” and “Woman Suffrage.”
Miss Ballinger was an active member from the
club’s inception through 1929. She acted as a
delegate to the first state general convention of Founding place of the Daughters of the Republic
women’s clubs in Waco in 1897 and served as of Texas.

Waves Magazine | June 2019 Issue | 47