Pauline O'Neill (suffrage leader)

Pauline Marie O'Neill (née Schindler) (January 13, 1865 – January 12, 1961) was an American suffragist and legislator. In addition to her personal accomplishments, she is remembered as the widow of William Owen "Buckey" O'Neill.

O'Neill was born Pauline Marie Schindler in San Francisco, California on January 13, 1865. An only child, her parents, W.F.R. and Rosalie Young Schindler, had immigrated from Prusia and her father worked as a purchasing agent for the U.S. Army. Around 1884 her father was transferred to Fort Whipple and she accompanied her parents to Arizona Territory.

Schindler met her first husband, Buckey O'Neill, while working as a school teacher. At the time he was editor of the Hoof and Horn newspaper. The couple were married on April 27, 1886. Their first child, "Buckey" Jr., was born January 1, 1887 and died two weeks later. They adopted a second son, Maurice, on October 15 the same year. O'Neill was widowed on July 1, 1898 when Buckey died during the Battle of San Juan Hill.Life insurance of US$200,000 along with property in Phoenix and monies from her husband's onyx mine left her financially secure for many years to follow. She remarried on May 16, 1901, wedding her late husband's brother, Eugene Brady O'Neill. Eugene was a Phoenix-based lawyer who served two terms in the Council (upper house) of the Arizona Territorial Legislature before he committed suicide in 1918.

The same year she lost her first husband, O'Neill was elected president of the Arizona Territorial Women's Suffrage Association while her friend Frances Munds was elected the group's secretary. Unlike earlier suffrage leaders in the territory, such as Josephine Brawley Hughes, O'Neill and Munds reached out to Mormon ladies within the territory. This outreach enable to organization to lobby Mormon member of the territorial legislature to support legislation supporting women, the result being passage of a women's suffrage bill by the 22nd Arizona Territorial Legislature. The bill was later vetoed by Territorial Governor Alexander Brodie.

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