On February 11, 1946, LWV Pasadena members learned of the death of Ida Rust Macpherson, the woman who started our League. The League Board of Directors voted to adopt this resolution:

Resolution: Ida Rust Macpherson can be said to have been solely responsible for Pasadena having a League of Women Voters. While many others helped later in its organizing, their efforts came as a result of interest awakened by her.

Ida Rust McPherson

Her work as a leader in the women’s suffrage movement in Michigan was such that she became one of the distinguished “Women of Destiny” whose names are inscribed on the [LWV] National Roll of Honor in Washington, D.C. … After coming to Pasadena Mrs. Macpherson expressed to many Pasadena women her conviction of the need for intelligent, non-partisan participation in government and, on her initiative, she enlisted the attention of the California League of Women Voters. Through her generosity two organization teas were held in her home and culminated in the founding of the Pasadena League.

Her rare genius for organization and for understanding people enabled her to inspire others in carrying out the purposes of the League. By her love, by her kindness, by her genuine interest in those with whom she worked, she made working with her a privilege. It was her inspiration to establish sustaining memberships in the Pasadena League so that those who did not wish to be active could, by their generosity, have a part in the program.

No one could express more beautifully the high ideal Mrs. Macpherson held for the League of Women Voters than she did in her own words:

As a group we earnestly strive to make permanent our republican form of government, yet keep it flexible enough through the natural evolution of change to meet all vicissitudes. These gifts that have been handed down to us, freedom of speech and action and the regard for human dignity, are recognized today as our most valued possessions. I shall do what I can to preserve this form of government for our children, that they may enjoy the freedom and sense of human dignity that we enjoy today. As an important means to this, I will use the agency offered me through the League of Women Voters.

Now therefore, we, the members of the board of the Pasadena League of Women Voters, extend to her bereaved family our deep and sincere sympathy, with the hope that their grief will be lessened by the knowledge that her high ideals for the League of Women Voters will continue to serve as its goal.

—Elsa Pendleton, Compiler