A deed well done

Women rule as county's register of deeds.

By Chip Womick
Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune

'Randolph Rewind', a weekly visit, or revisitation, with a person, place or news event from the county's past by Ramseur resident Chip Womick, is published each Monday in The Courier-Tribune.

Iola Lowdermilk was named register of deeds on the death of her boss in 1939.  In 1940, when she campaigned to keep the post, she became the first woman to run for public office in the county.

Her vistory at the polls on Nov. 5, 1940 - in the midst of a Democratic tide that earned Franklin D. Roosevelt a third term as U.S. president - secured Lowdermilk's place in Randolph County history as the first female elected to political office here.

Also noteworthy is that since Lowdermilk's appointment in 1939, and continuing with Ann Shaw's re-election earlier this month, Randolph County's register of deeds has been a woman.

That's 63 years and counting.

Lowdermilk was tapped to fill the unexpired term of Clay Johnson when he died in March 1939.  A former teacher, she had served as a deputy in the register of deeds office since 1930.

Despite the historic nature of her bid for office, a political advertisement touting Lowdermilk in the days before the primary election in May 1940 did not make an issue of her gender.  The ad simply reads:  "Vote for IOLA LOWDERMILK for REGISTER OF DEEDS.  An Efficient, Capable Public Servant!  She Knows Every Detail of the Office!  Her Record Speaks For Itself!  A vote for Iola Lowdermilk is a vote for continued efficient, courteous and capable service in an office which belongs to the people of the county."

She swamped her Democratic primary opponent, D. J. Boyles, by a vote of 3,585 to 748.   Then she topped the Republican candidate, John B. Farlow, in November when some 14,000 ballots were cast.  It was, at the time, one of the largest voters turnouts in county history.  In a year when all the local offices were won by Democrats, by an average of 1,200 to 1,500 votes, Lowdermilk shined.  She received 8,609 votes to her opponent's 6,907, a spread of 1,702.

Examination of the precinct tallies provides an interesting aside.  A story in the Courier-Tribune the day after the 1940 general election reported it this way.

"Sidelight on the Democratic victory was the performance of Pleasant Grove township, bordering the Chatham county line in southeast Randolph.  With 100 Democrats on its registration books, Pleasant Grove reported a full 100 Democratic votes."

A front page story a couple of months earlier offers the likely explanation for the 100-percent turnout by Democrats in Pleasant Grove township - they were supporting one of their own.  The headline reads:  "Lowdermilk Family Will Meet Sept. 29 at Pleasant Hill - One of Randolph's Oldest Families Will Hold Annual Reunion."

The story notes that the Lowdermilk family had settled in Randolph County more than 150 years earlier.

"...Family records show that the Lowdermilks first came to this country from Germany prior to the Revolutionary War and settled in Germantown, Pa.  During the battle for independence Jacob Lowdermilk and his son fought for this country, the former becoming a second lieutenant in the Revolutionary army.

"A general migration south of many German families following the Revolutionry war brought the Lowdermilks to Randolph county, and they settled in what is now knows as Richland and Pleasant Grove townships."

In 1944, Republican Alese Millikan Ward unseated Lowdermilk.  Before the election, Democratic officials said they believed Republicans would show up at the polls and they feared the "stay at home" vote, that is, Democrats who simply did not vote.   Apparently, their concerns were legitmate.  Lowdermilk tallied 1,000 fewer votes than Ward - and about 1,400 fewer votes than she'd won four years earlier.