Virginia Mason

Virginia Mason's signature, 1869 (SCSU Archives)

"Normal School Examination," St. Cloud Journal, July 6, 1871, containing Virginia Mason's culminating essay (MNHS)

Virginia Mason was born in 1848 in Indiana. By the 1857 Minnesota census, her father, J. A., had passed away, and she had moved to St. Cloud with her mother, who went both by Jane and Juliet, and her older brothers Henry and James. They initially lived in the home of Joseph West, who may have been James’s business partner. By 1860, they had moved into their own home.

Virginia enrolled with the Third State Normal School’s first students in September 1869 and graduated with its first class on June 30, 1871. Her culminating essay, “Free, or in Bonds?,” was the last read during the ceremony. In it, she argued that an individual’s biases, including the “unquestioning acceptance of inherited creeds and codes” limit their ability to fully grasp issues like women’s suffrage, and one can only understand an idea through recognizing multiple perspectives on it. The St. Cloud Journal printed her essay in full as part of its coverage of the ceremony.

Due to a “continued lack of health,” Virginia was unable to teach after graduation and was still living with her mother as of 1875. By 1880, however, she had found a teaching job in Minneapolis, where she was one of many professionals staying in a hotel owned by Enoch and Ann Dyer. She became engaged to Bryant Coe, the son of a city alderman.

On the night of July 12, 1884, Bryant was murdered in a robbery while the couple walked on the University of Minnesota campus. Virginia fell into a deep depression and was cared for by friends while living in Alderman Coe’s home. After several attempts, she took her own life on October 29, 1884. In the St. Paul Daily Globe, Virginia was remembered as a charming, intelligent, and admirable young woman. She was buried in Minneapolis’s Lakewood Cemetery, plot 24-7-6.5.

St. Paul Daily Globe, October 31, 1884