Virginia E. Jenckes

Virginia Ellis Jenckes (November 6, 1877 – January 9, 1975) was a U.S. Representative from Indiana. She was the first woman to serve in the U.S. House from the state of Indiana.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, as Virginia Ellis Somes, Jenckes served as Secretary of Wabash Maumee Valley Improvement Association from 1926 to 1932. She was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and to the two succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1939). She was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1938 to the Seventy-sixth Congress. United States delegate to the Interparliamentary Union in Paris, France, in 1937. After leaving Congress, she remained in Washington, D.C. for many years working for the American Red Cross. She returned to her native Terre Haute, Indiana, in the early 1970s. She died in Terre Haute, Indiana, January 9, 1975. She was interred in Highland Lawn Cemetery.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress website http://bioguide.congress.gov.

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