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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. J. L. Sawyers

Mrs. Jennie Drake Sawyers, daughter of the late General Francis Marion Drake, Ex-Governor of Iowa, and Mary Lord Drake, was born in Drakeville, Iowa.  Her father should be remembered in Iowa history, not only because he was governor of the commonwealth, and a man of large financial interests, a general in the Civil War with a record of which Iowa may feel proud, but because he was a great man, a Christian man, who stood on the side of righteousness, a generous philanthropist, and a patron of education.  Mrs. Sawyer was the first graduate of the Centerville high school, she later attended Oskaloosa College, the Chicago Female College, studied art in New York City, which was followed by three years of travel and study in the art centers of Europe.  On June 12, 1883, she was married at her home in Centerville, to Dr. John Lazelle Sawyers, a successful physician and surgeon of Centerville, one of the best known men in his profession in southern Iowa.  They have two daughters:  Mary Drake Sawyers Baker of Baltimore, Md., and Hygiene Drake Sawyers, who is at school in the east, and one son, Francis Lazelle Sawyers.  Mrs. Sawyers is a member of the Church of Christ, in Centerville, a member of the Christian Women's Board of Missions, and of the Philathea Class in the Sunday School.  She is a member of the P. E. O. sisterhood, and has an active part in the society life of Centerville when she is at home.  The Drake family has been prominent in Centerville since 1865, having always been interested in church school and other local interests.

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