Mary Ellen Blackburn Wigstrand (1856–1927)

Mary B. Wigstrand was the first woman elected from Polk County to serve in the Arkansas General Assembly. She grew up in Kentucky before moving to Arkansas in the late 1890s, and, with the exception of a brief time in Connecticut due to her husband’s work, she lived in Polk County for the rest of her life, becoming a well-regarded figure in local political and literary circles. 

Mary Ellen Blackburn was born on September 17, 1856, in Chicago, Illinois (although her headstone lists her birth year as 1858). Her father, Breckenridge Flournoy Blackburn, who was an attorney, came from a politically prominent Kentucky family; her mother’s name is unknown. The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and Blackburn attended St. Agnes Academy there and was a member of St. Peter Catholic Church.   

In 1877, she married Amos Walter Jones, a Memphis native and aspiring architect; they had one son. Jones died suddenly in August 1879, and the following year their young son died. While she remained in Memphis, she frequently visited Kentucky, where her uncle Luke Blackburn, a physician, served as governor from 1879 to 1883. Later, when another uncle, Joseph Blackburn, served in Congress (first in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1875 to 1885, followed by two stints in the U.S. Senate from 1885 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907), she was active in the social and political circles in the nation’s capital.  

In 1897, she married Swedish native Gustave Frederick (Fred) Wigstrand, a skilled engineer who had come to the United States in 1879 and worked for the U.S. government for twenty-nine years until his health began to fail. Not long after they were married, the couple moved to Polk County. They had a son, Var Alsking Garin Wigstrand, who was born in August 1900 but died in November.  

The Wigstrands moved to Connecticut in November 1908 for her husband’s government work as an engineer, but ill health led to their return by the following summer. Writing to friends via the local paper back in Mena (Polk County), shortly after Christmas 1908, Wigstrand said that she enjoyed the history of the region but was a bit put off by the way the New Englanders lorded the region’s history over those who were not natives. Her husband had bought land in Mena as an investment before leaving Polk County, and so when they returned they built a house there.  

For roughly a quarter century in Mena, Wigstrand was an active contributor to the community. She served as county probation officer for several years and was a regular contributor to the local paper. In April 1911, at the request of the paper, she wrote a special memorial in honor of the respected progressive leader and mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, Tom Johnson, who had spent much of his youth in Arkansas. She was active in the Mena Woman’s Literary Club and in 1908 served as club poet.  

Wigstrand’s husband died on February 26, 1918, of heart failure after overcoming a bout of pneumonia. 

Wigstrand won the award for Best Homemade Vinegar at the Polk County Fair, as well as a first-place award in fine arts for an etching she had done. She served on the board or held office in a number of organizations including the School Improvement Association, the Red Cross, and the League of Women Voters. In 1921, she was elected to the executive board of the Mena Women’s Club, and the following year, she was elected as a county delegate to the Democratic state convention. 

In 1926, she entered the political arena, defeating Hatfield (Polk County) mayor William Brewer in the Democratic primary and then, running unopposed, won the November general election for a seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives.  

As a member of the House, she secured the passage of legislation that changed the name of the Illiteracy Commission to the Arkansas Adult Education Commission. In conjunction with Representative Florence McRaven, her only female colleague in the House, she co-authored a bill requiring fathers of illegitimate children to pay hospital expenses, but the proposal failed to pass. But in March 1927, she and McRaven were able to convince the House to hold evening sessions to allow for more time to get their legislative proposals considered, although she was unable to achieve enactment of her primary goal, the establishment of the Western Agricultural College in Mena.    

Wigstrand died on July 12, 1927, after a short illness soon after the end of the legislative session. She is buried in White Oak Cemetery in Polk County.  

For additional information:
“Of Things Colonial.” Mena Weekly Star, January 14, 1909. 

Smith, Lindsley Armstrong, and Stephen A. Smith. Stateswomen: A Centennial History of Arkansas Women Legislators 1922–2022. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. 

Wigstrand, Mary. “A Great Man’s Early Years.” Mena Weekly Star, April 27, 1911. 

William H. Pruden III
Ravenscroft School

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