Mary Condon Gereau, 89; Former President of National Woman’s Party
Mary Condon Gereau, 89, a former president of the National Woman’s Party who was the first woman elected as Montana’s state superintendent of public instruction and one of the first woman lobbyists in Washington, died Sunday of undisclosed causes in Fredericksburg, Va.
A native of Winterset, Iowa, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Iowa, Gereau was dean of students at Eastern Montana College in 1948 when elected the state’s superintendent of public instruction. During her two four-year terms, she fought for public school systems on the state’s seven American Indian reservations.
After losing a bid for a third term, she took a job in Washington with the National Education Assn., where she lobbied for federal education legislation that included Head Start and the Higher Education Act of 1965.
In 2000, Gereau received a medal of honor from the Veteran Feminists of America for her work on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment and related women’s causes.
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