Emily Eliza Gates Brown

English
Grace Wilcox 9/8/16

Emily Eliza Gates was born in 1859 in Simsbury, Connecticut to Elizabeth

Higley and Dwight Gates. When Emily was a young child living in a rural town in the
northern United States during the Civil War. Her three older sisters, Juliette, Ida
Jane, and Laura Brown and her mother might have sewn uniforms for soldiers or
made bandages to send to the front line to help with the war effort. In 1861
President Abraham Lincoln declared the Civil war a people's contest. Citizens of
the northern states took this to heart and and helped with what they could for the
war. Women organized sewing bees to make uniforms, while some men who stayed
home from the war had to be careful not to get in trouble or be caught in draft riot
for fear of could get beaten to death like many others were during this time. One
year into the war the United States suffered a big financial burden from the war,
and the US congress enacted the first income tax law. With encouragement from the
president northerners pushed onward supporting the cause of the union. Emily was
six years old when the war ended. Little did she know during this time her future
husband was serving the union army!
Emily married Eugene Gates Brown in 1876 when she was seventeen years
old and Eugene was twenty nine years old. Their daughter Carrie Elizabeth Brown
was born May 2nd 1878 in Granby, Hartford, Connecticut. They had four other
children in the next 13 years. Dwight Eugene Brown, Miles Irwin Brown, Ida L Brown,
and Carroll Henry Brown.
In 1916 when Emily was 57 her father passed away at the age of 90. The next
year in 1917 the Unites States declared war on Germany while she was living in
Connecticut. The United states was declared neutral when the germans attacked
merchant vessels and declared unrestricted warfare against all ships entering the
war zone. A day after this President Woodrow Wilson asked to declare war on April
2nd 1917 in front of the U.S congress. He said the U.S must exert all its power and
employ all its resources to end the first world war. The vote was conceded.
Thousands americans wanted to do their bit and in nine months 175,000
american soldiers were stationed along the western front. Most everyone put their
best into the war effort supporting the four and a half million American soldiers who
served in Western Europe. Eugene Brown passed away that same year in 1917 after
41 years of marriage with Emily. In february of 1918 Elizabeth Higley her mother
passed away in Simsbury, Connecticut at the age of 82.
In 1920 the 19th amendment was passed declaring women the constitutional
right to vote. Women suffrage leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton met to discuss their goal of gaining full voting rights throughout the United
States. This was an ongoing program for 72 years before the law was finally

ratified. Emily Gates could have voted for the first time while she was living in
Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1929 her sister Ida died in Simsbury.
In 1933 Emily might have been apart of the majority that celebrated in
Simsbury, Connecticut when the 21st amendment ended national alcohol
prohibition on December 5th 1933. In 1941 when she was 65, she lived in the united
states when we declared war on Japan just one day after the attack on pearl harbor
that killed 2,400 americans.
In 1944 there was a circus fire in Hartford Connecticut where Emily lived.
Around 7,ooo people attended. While the circus act was going on the wall of the
tent caught on fire from what was believed to be a cigarette. It caused such a
ruckus when someone alerted the audience and caused a panic and made it harder
to get out of the burning tent. 17o people died and 700 were injured.
Emily died in 1946 at the age of 87 years old. This is a picture of Emily with
her sisters, her husband Eugene, their children and grandchildren.