When Adele Barnes was born in 1893,...

When Adele Barnes was born in 1893, Grover S. Cleveland was President. People got around by horse-drawn carriage. And women would have to wait 27 more years for the right to vote.

When she celebrates her 99th birthday Sunday at Mayfair Senior School in Pasadena, Barnes can reflect on the changes she has seen in almost a century of living. She can also raise a toast to the small part she played as a lifelong feminist who was first exposed to women’s rights by her mother, Alice Paul, the famous East Coast suffragist.

Barnes’ birthday party is being sponsored by the Pasadena League of Women Voters, which is charging $18.93 for the event in efforts to raise money for the organization. The party, which will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., is open to the public.

As a teen-ager, Barnes worked alongside her mother in central New York for women’s voting rights. A Quaker, Alice Paul founded the Woman’s Party in the United States, marched on the White House, was arrested three times and went on hunger strikes to fight for universal suffrage.

Influenced by her mother’s beliefs, Barnes followed suit. In 1922, she and her husband, Hobert W. Barnes, came to Pasadena, where she found a job as a social worker with migrant families. She raised a daughter, Sarah, and was active for more than half a century in the League of Women Voters at the state and local levels.

During this time, Barnes also sat on a variety of boards, including the Pasadena Area Council of Churches, the Women’s City Club, the Altadena Woman’s Circle and the Altadena Community Council. She served two terms as secretary of the board of the Community Planning Council and ran unsuccessfully for the Pasadena Unified School Board in 1964.

For more party information, call the league office at (818) 798-0965.