Cora Louise Boehringer was born in 1874 in Morrison, Illinois, where her German immigrant parents had settled shortly after arriving in the United States at the end of the Civil War.
Louise, as she was called, became a persistent advocate for education and school reform.
While still in the Midwest, and after teaching in rural schools for several years, Louise became a director in the Genesee Normal School in Illinois and later served as director of the State Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. She then accepted the position of supervisor of the new Normal School in Springfield, Missouri.
Louise recognized she was capable of overseeing schools with a great degree of success. Changing her direction from teaching to supervising, she went back to school and received a degree in supervision from Teachers College in New York, as well as a degree from New York’s Columbia University in 1911.
In 1908, Louise had filed a 40-acre homestead claim in Yuma County, and in 1912 she moved permanently onto her ranch in Southwestern Arizona.
The school system in Arizona at the time differed greatly from the Midwestern institutes familiar to Louise. The school year lasted about six months, and a woman teacher’s salary was about $82 a month, compared to a man who earned around $118.
Teachers were not attracted to the low pay along with the lack of school funding. Louise was the perfect candidate to help reform Arizona’s educational system.
In 1913, Louise ran for Yuma County Superintendent of Schools against a man who was accused or dallying with one of the female teachers. Handily winning over her opponent and two other candidates, her election made her the first woman to hold a public office in Arizona. She served in this position for four years.
Louise immediately set out to improve the education of students by adding much needed programs and more modern equipment to poorly run schools across the state. When she was invited to speak at the National Education Association convention in 1913, her achievements in Arizona schools gained national attention.
Hoping to improve the school system at a higher level, Louise ran for State Superintendent of Education in 1916 and had the distinction of being the only candidate who held a university degree. She was defeated but continued to seek this post, running again in 1922 and 1940, but she never gained enough support to attain the position.
Undaunted, Louise set off on a different path of educational achievement. She went back to school to concentrate on writing and journalism, subsequently purchasing the periodical Arizona Teacher in 1917.
She wrote, edited, published and financed this handbook that became the official publication of the Arizona State Teachers Association for over 20 years. She also edited the Arizona Parent-Teacher Bulletin as well as editing the National Altrusian, a publication for women executives.
Louise successfully ran for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives in 1920, serving two one-year terms.
Chairing the Education Committee, she was instrumental in initiating and developing educational reforms across the state such as establishing the state school board and securing permanent funding for Arizona’s educational system.
She is also credited with securing passage of Bill 170, known as the Nameless Child Bill, that provided financial and educational support for illegitimate children.
According to a 1923 article in the Arizona Daily Star, Bill 170 had been argued before the Legislature for several years but had little support. The bill provided that “every child born in the state of Arizona is a legitimate child, requiring its father, whether wedded to the mother or not, to give it his name and to assume the responsibility of the care and education of his child. The child is also entitled to the rights of the children of the father by a legitimate wife and shall share in the heritance or properties left by its father.”
Louise was instrumental in getting the bill passed through the House of Representatives and then personally delivered it to the Senate floor.
“I went with that bill,” she said, “and I stood over every man in that senate and looked him square in the eye when he was ready for his vote, and it was passed at four o’clock in the morning the last day of the session.”
“Women,” Louise argued, “may think that they can stand about and read nice little discourses on what ought to be done about legislation for women and children, but they won’t ever get anything passed that way. They will have to learn that they must be on the field of battle and fight to get bills passed. After they are passed they will have to be on the ground to protect what they have put through.”
Aware that women needed their own platforms upon which to expound their causes, Louise founded the Yuma chapter of the Business and Professional Women’s Club.
In 1921, she was elected the first state president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and also served as national vice president of the organization.
She was President of the Arizona Council of Administrative Women in Education and served as chair of the Arizona State Federation of Women’s Clubs. She founded the Phoenix and Tucson branches of the National League of American Pen Women.
In 1928, incoming President Herbert Hoover appointed Louise to the Arizona State Better Homes Committee that provided communities with information on improving housing conditions. She became director of curriculum for the Department of Education in 1933, a position she held for six years.
At the age of 75, Louise left Arizona for Seattle, Washington, where she died on Sept. 11, 1956.
Known as the “Mother of the Arizona educational system,” Louise was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame in 2008. She saw a need for educational reform and spent her life improving the lives of Arizona’s children. And even though she left the classroom for loftier positions, she once remarked, “There is no finer opportunity in life than that of teaching.”
