Elizabeth Fulton Hester

Elizabeth Fulton Hester was an American missionary, Confederate States of America nurse, and early advocate for women's suffrage who was active in Indian Territory and later the U.S. state of Oklahoma.

Early life Elizabeth Fulton Hester was born in Georgia on January 6, 1839, to Reverend Defau Tallerand Fulton and his wife. Defau Fulton had left Virginia to become a Methodist missionary to the Cherokee in North Georgia.

Missionary work and teaching In 1856, she moved to Tishomingo, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory to work at a missionary school. In 1917, she became the first woman to speak in the Oklahoma Capitol. Her daughter, Daisy Hester, married U.S. Senator Robert L. Owen. She died in August 1929.