Eliza Tupper Wilkes
Sioux Falls Public Library
Eliza Tupper Wilkes BY WAYNE FANEBUST
T
he Dakota frontier offered difficult challenges and tempting opportunities to both men and women. The latter were subservient to the husbands and fathers, but women represented something new and daring, if they had talent and determination. Married women were almost always referred to as “Mrs. John Smith” as if they were an extension of their husband, and unable to escape the shadow of the man they married. And yet some women were able to stand out on their own. For example, a woman known only to history as Mrs. Warren Cowles was a very talented artist who sketched and painted scenery in both Vermillion and Sioux Falls. Her artistry was so pure and beautiful that she was actually mentioned in newspaper articles, praising her skills, without having to share the newsprint with her husband, who was a leading
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HISTORY
territorial official. Still there were some things among the many that a pioneer woman could not aspire to: hold political office and preach sermons in church. That was destined to change when Eliza Tupper Wilkes arrived in Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, in 1878. A native of Holton, Maine, she was born October 8, 1844, the oldest child of Allen and Ellen Tupper. Information about her childhood is sketchy, but it is known that young Eliza fell under the beguiling influence of the Quaker Movement or the Religious Society of Friends, that started in England in the 17th century. The peaceloving Friends encouraged her to study the precepts of the Quaker faith, something she took seriously, and she was ordained as a minister May 2, 1871, in Rochester, Minnesota. It was an achievement that would have been impossible in other
Christian sects that did not believe in the equality of men and women. When the female minister arrived in Sioux Falls, she was accompanied by her husband and attorney William A. Wilkes. They may have been induced to come to Sioux Falls by Eliza’s parents, Allen and Ellen Tupper, who were living in nearby Canton. Allen was a Baptist minister and Ellen gained national recognition as an authority on beekeeping. They were simply elements of a remarkable family until something bad happened. That came in September of 1876, when it was reported in an Iowa newspaper that Ellen S. Tupper had been indicted by a grand jury for forgery and “uttering a false note.” The article teasingly referred to Mrs. Tupper as the “Queen Bee of Iowa.” The outcome of this criminal accusation is unknown to this writer, but it apparently
