Anna Lester

Anna Sheppard was born February 16, 1866 in Washington to Dennis & Mary Sheppard.  She attended Washington schools as a child.  Interestingly, she did not complete high school, but started teaching at the grade school level at age 18.  She taught in several rural school districts in the late 1880s.

In 1890, she married William Lester Sr. He was from Wisconsin, and he whisked her away to La Crosse, Wisconsin, for them to start a new life together.   He ran an express company there. Their son Willie Lester Jr. was born just eleven months into their marriage.

Tragedy then struck the young family.  William Lester Sr. came down with a particularly severe case of influenza and died just two months after the birth of their son and 13 months into their marriage.  Anna was now on her own with an infant.

She returned home to Washington where she had family.  Anna, who had taken over the express company business during her husband's illness, handled his estate, which was challenging as he left no will.

From 1891 to the early 1900s, Anna became more and more involved in a multitude of activities around Washington.  She flipped houses.  She sold coal.  She was the postmaster pro tempore when her father was travelling for business.  And she was in too many organizations to name.

In the summer of 1897, Anna was part of a select Washington contingent to attend the wildly popular Rock River Assembly in Dixon, Illinois, a two-week celebration of speeches and entertainment along the river, drawing tens of thousands of people from across the state.  Featured speaker that year was Confederate General John B. Gordon, speaking on the last days of the confederacy.  The assembly was held in Dixon from 1875-1925.

After the turn of the century, Anna started spending more time in Peoria.  In 1899, she had secured a job with Schipper & Block, which later became Block & Kuhl, which later became Carson Pirie Scott.  She then moved to its competitor Harned, Bergner, & Von Maur, and later, Clark & Company. Around 1904 she moved to Peoria.

By far her biggest organizational involvement was with the Royal Neighbors of America, an organization that still exists today.  That group was a female offshoot of the Modern Woodmen of America.  She was undoubtedly a member when it was first chartered in Peoria in 1895, because by 1899 she was strongly being considered as a candidate for the Office of Supreme Commander, now called Supreme Oracle, the highest ranking executive office in the organization.  In 1908 she was privileged to be appointed to the three-member state Board of Claims for the Royal Neighbors, which necessitated travelling around the state.  The other two members were lawyers.  The Royal Neighbors had life insurance policies with their members and this board handled those claims.  The Denver Republican remarked this about Anna in 1911:

Mrs. Lester, as a member of the beneficiary committee, has aided in the general improvement of the society to such an extent that she is being put forward as one of the strongest candidates for the board of managers. So successful has the present administration been generally that Mrs. Collins and her supporters are at a loss to see how arguments can be advanced that will prove strong enough to defeat her and those who have worked with her most actively. There is hardly a more popular woman among the delegates than Mrs. Lester. Her knowledge of the affairs of the society seems practically unbounded when one sits for a few minutes and listens to the tripping manner in which her tongue replies to any manner of question that may be asked.

In Peoria she continued her versatility.  As late as the 1930s she was the President of the Peoria City Women's Democratic Delegation.  She also worked for the First National Bank and the Winzeler Funeral Home.  But occupation always seemed to take a backseat to organization with Anna, as in Peoria, just like Washington, she was in numerous organizations and held offices in most of those.

In the 1940s Anna started to lose her health and became a resident at the Proctor Endowment Home in Peoria.  Her decline was slow, and she passed away August 2, 1952.  Both she and her husband William are buried in Glendale Cemetery.

Anna Lester was definitely ahead of her time.  Living in a man's world, she blew through that ceiling and conquered just about everything she set out to do despite the adversity she endured.