Home of Ada Enid Haldeman Ford

Ada Enid Haldeman Ford was an advocate for women's suffrage in the town of Grafton, West Virginia. She founded the Taylor County Women’s Suffrage League, was involved with the West Virginia Equal Suffrage League, and was active in the Democratic Party after 1920. This house was the home of Gene W. and Ada Enid Halderman Ford from 1926 to their respective deaths. 

Ada Enid Haldeman Ford was born in Minneapolis in 1883 and came to West Virginia in 1889. She attended Fairmont Normal School where she received an elementary teacher's certificate. Ada married Gene Ford, a prominent lawyer of Grafton, in September of 1909 at her parent's home in Thornton, West Virginia, just outside of Grafton. The couple had one son named Layne H. Ford.

She primarily did her work in the town of Grafton, West Virginia. She founded the Women's Suffrage League in Taylor County and later became the President when it was reorganized into the Taylor County Equal Suffrage Association. This group was modeled after other current groups in cities and other states. One of the common reasons against women's suffrage in Taylor County was that if a woman joined the suffrage movement she would be less of a "womanly woman." In other terms she would not be as good of a homemaker and or housewife. Many of the women who contributed their time and effort for women's suffrage in the town of Grafton, West Virginia did so out of their own time since there were little rewards as the organization struggled for money.

Ada often hosted important state and national leaders in her home and was active in the West Virginia Equal Suffrage League. Ford was chosen to be a WV delegate to 1917 the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in Washington, D.C. She was one of the five women on the State Campaign Committee to work to secure the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Ada continued her political efforts after ratification and extended past the town of Grafton into sections of Blueville, now a subdivision next to the local Walmart, Knottsville, Flemington, and elsewhere. In the 1920s she was active in the Democratic Party and was chosen as vice chairman of the Taylor County Democratic executive committee in 1929. 

Ada Enid Haldeman Ford died January 22, 1979 and is buried in Bluemont Cemetery in Grafton, WV. 

Ford, Ada Enid. The History of Woman Suffrage Movement and Taylor County's Part Therein. Grafton, West Virginia. Ada Enid Haldeman Ford, 1940.

Gene W. Ford Home, U.S. Rt. 50, Grafton, W. Va., West Virginia Regional History Center. Accessed September 29th 2021. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/039827.

Hinton Daily News, Hinton, WV, December 24, 1929. Accessed through Newspapers.com, February 11, 2022.

Pioneer Press, Martinsburg, WV, April 17, 1915. Accessed through Newspapers.com, February 11, 2022.

Portrait of Ada Enid Haldeman of Taylor County, W. Va., West Virginia Regional History Center. Accessed September 29th 2021. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/039814.

The Daily Telegram, Clarksburg, WV, August 3, 1916. Accessed through Newspapers.com, February 11, 2022.

The Fairmont West Virginian, Fairmont, WV, April 10, 1915. Accessed through Newspapers.com, February 11, 2022.

"The Sunday telegram. [volume], July 25, 1915, Image 11." Chronicling America. Accessed February 11, 2022. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059732/1915-07-25/ed-1/seq-11/#date1=1910&index=0&rows=20&words=Ford+Gene+Mrs+W&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=West+Virginia&date2=1963&proxtext=Mrs+Gene+W+Ford&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1.

The West Virginian, Fairmont, WV, November 21, 1917. Accessed through Newspapers.com, February 11, 2022.

Wiley, Kaitlyn, "West Virginia Women and Their Battle For Suffrage", 30 April, 2019.