Grinstead, Minnie J.

In 1918 Republican Minnie J. Grinstead was the first woman elected to the Kansas House of Representatives. She served for three terms. She chaired the Education committee and the Public Welfare committee, and was a member of the Roads and Highways committee. She voted for free public libraries while in the legislature. Grinstead was a teacher and activist with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After serving three terms Grinstead declined to run for another term. Instead she ran for, and was elected, probate judge in her hometown of Liberal, serving for a year, before her death. Historian Lori Enicks-Kniss writes that President Calvin Coolidge considered Grinstead to head up the U.S. Civil Service Commission. She was married to Virgil Grinstead.