Elly M. Peterson

Elly M. Peterson (June 5 1914 – June 9 2008), also known as Mrs. W. Merritt Peterson, was an American politician from Charlotte, Eaton County, Michigan. She was married to the late Colonel W. M. Peterson and was an overseas Red Cross volunteer in World War II. She was an officer in the American Cancer Society, an active member of the Congregational Church, American Legion Auxiliary, a lifetime member of the NAACP, and a 1984 inductee into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. She attended what is now William Woods University in Fulton, Mo.

She was Vice-chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 1961-1963 and became a candidate for U.S. Senator from Michigan in 1964. Peterson would later comment that she picked up the gauntlet and ran for the Senate because no one else would run against the popular incumbent, Philip Hart, particularly in a year with her party divided over its presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Winning just 35.3% of the vote, she nevertheless bettered Goldwater's tally in Michigan, 33.1%, and did so with little funds; to accomplish that much was a tribute to her energy, organization and down-to-earth appeal.

In 1965, she became the first woman to serve as Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party – as well as the first woman to chair any major state political party in U.S. history – serving from 1965-1969. The Michigan Political History Society eventually selected Elly Peterson as the best Republican State Chairman in the last fifty years. She was a member of the Republican National Committee from Michigan from 1969-1971.

She worked to elect George W. Romney as Governor of Michigan and his Lieutenant Governor, William Milliken, who succeeded him when Romney became US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1969.

While she was vice-chair of the Republican National Committee, Peterson was a strong advocate for outreach, empowering, fence-mending and organization, continuing the practices that had made her effective as Chair of the Michigan party. Inquisitive and probing, she was also quick to laugh and often referred to as "Mother" by her interns, such as Christine Todd Whitman. Friendly and un-dogmatic, while in Washington she shared a house with the prominent Democrat Liz Carpenter, who'd been press-secretary for Lady Bird Johnson and a speech-writer for Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.

An egalitarian by philosophy and example, Peterson was a national co-chairwoman of ERAmerica, a private national campaign organization, during the fight to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. Peterson also strongly supported abortion rights and was a charter member in the National Women's Political Caucus. At this time, in the early 1970s, the conservative wing of the Republican Party was beginning to create friction with the liberal members, Peterson amongst them. She successfully battled to keep Phyllis Schlafly from seizing control of the National Federation of Republican Women, but she was experiencing reduced affinity with the Republican Convention 'platforms' and by 1983 endorsed James Blanchard, the Democrat running for Michigan Governor rather than the very conservative Republican.

Eventually Peterson conceded she'd become an Independent. She laughed that "I recently received a call from a Republican group saying they wanted her in a directory of important Republican women, and I had to tell them they needed to do their homework better!" In her last year, she was a supporter of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, both as a feminist and because she didn't feel America's residual racial prejudices would allow Barack Obama to win.

References

* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061003134.html?nav=rss_nation/special "Washington Post" obit]
* [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/peterson.html#RP3023D0H The Political Graveyard]
* [http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/06/26/evolving_history/ 2005 "Boston Globe" article]
*http://www.minutemanmedia.org/MIM%20060904.htm
*http://www.minutemanmedia.org/MIM%20032404.htm
* [http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/OBITUARIES/806100339/1263/LOCAL "Detroit News" obit]