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The Blue Book of Iowa Women A History of Contemporary Women

Compiled by Winona Evans Reeves, 1914.

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Mrs. Walter McHenry

Louisa Caroline Cummins McHenry was born in Greene county, Pa., Oct. 25, 1865, the daughter of Thomas Layton Cummins and Sarah Baird Flanniken.  She is the sister of U. S. Senator A. B. Cummins and J. B. Cummins of Des Moines.  Her great grandfather was Judge Flanniken, a signer of the Mechlenburg Declaration, and a soldier in the war of the Revolution under Francis Marion.  She was educated in the Green Academy, Carmichaels, Pa.  On June 15, 1857, she was married to Walter McHenry, a prominent attorney of Des Moines, which city is her home.  They have two children --- Mary McHenry Williams and Harvey Cummins McHenry.  In religious faith she is a Presbyterian.  She is a member of the Outlook Circle, of the Des Moines Woman's Club, and of the P. E. O. sisterhood.  She has served chapter Q of Des Moines, which is the largest chapter in the sisterhood, as its president.  She has been state cor. sec'y. for three terms, 1909-12;  vice-president, 1912-13;  president, 1913-14.  She is a thoughtful, painstaking woman, conscientious in all she does, and possesses a good mind, reasoning out questions logically.  A. B. Cummins, who was governor of Iowa for seven years, and who is serving his third term as U. S. Senator, is her oldest brother.  He is a national figure, one of the best known men of this country.  Before entering politics he was recognized as one of the foremost lawyers of the state.  At the age of nineteen he became self supporting, working his own way through Waynesburg College.  He came to Iowa in 1869, in 1877 he came to Des Moines where he practiced law successfully until 1899.

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