Isabella Greenway

Isabella Dinsmore Greenway (née Selmes; born March 22, 1886 – December 18, 1953) was an American politician who was the first congresswoman in Arizona history, and the founder of the Arizona Inn of Tucson. During her life she was also noted as a one-time owner and operator of Los Angeles-based Gilpin Airlines, a speaker at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, and a bridesmaid at the wedding of Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Early life Isabella Dinsmore Selmes was born the daughter of Tilden Russell Selmes (1853–1895) and Martha "Patty" Macomb Flandrau (1861–1923). Isabella was born at the historic Dinsmore Farm in Boone County, Kentucky which was owned by her mother's maternal great aunt Julia Stockton Dinsmore (1833–1926). Her father Tilden Selmes was a Yale-educated attorney who originally practiced in St. Paul where he met her mother. Her mother Martha "Patty" Flandrau was the daughter of Minnesota Supreme Court judge and politician Charles Eugene Flandrau (1828–1903) and his first wife Isabella Ramsay Dinsmore (1830–1867).

The Selmes family owned a ranch 15 miles west of Mandan in Dakota Territory and was on the same rail line as Theodore Roosevelt's ranches in Medora 150 west of town. Her father Tilden and Theodore met in St. Paul while both were waiting their west-bound train. The Selmes family hosted him multiple times at their ranch and developed a close friendship with each other. to be near Patty's family. Tilden continued to practice law, and was for a time an associate counsel for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

After the untimely death of her father in 1895, Isabella and her mother lived with various members of her mother's family in Kentucky, Minnesota, and New York. Patty supported them by selling bacon and ham and working as a chaperone. where she met and became lifelong friends with Roosevelt's niece, Eleanor. Isabella finished school in 1904, but did not graduate.

The Ferguson's had two children, Martha (1906) and Robert Jr. (1908). Theodore Roosevelt became Robert Jr.'s godfather. In 1921, Robert's health declined. The Ferguson family moved to Santa Barbara, California, so the children could go to school.

John moved the family to a ranch in near Bisbee where he was manager of the Calumet and Arizona Mining Company. Later the family moved to Ajo where Isabella and John's son, John Selmes ("Jack") Greenway (1924–1995) was born. In 1926, John died suddenly following surgery, leaving Isabella a widow once again. Isabella continued many of her husband's plans in his memory. She successfully campaigned for a statue of John Campbell Greenway to be placed in the United States Capitol Building and facilitated its creation. In 1930, Greenway founded the Arizona Inn in Tucson.

Activism and politics Early work Her political work began in 1912, when Isabella worked to get voters for Roosevelt's Bull Moose ticket.

During the First World War she developed and directed the New Mexico Women's Land Army, a network of southwest women who farmed while the men were overseas.

In 1930, Greenway was urged again to run for governor. However, as the mother of a young son, she wanted to prioritize him and was uncertain that women would vote for a mother of a young child. When the nomination process stalled at the end of the third ballot, Greenway convinced the California delegation to meet with Roosevelt's campaign director, Jim Farley. Farley's promise that John Nance Garner would be Roosevelt's vice president convinced California to support Roosevelt, securing him the nomination.

On her fiftieth birthday she announced that she was retiring from public office. There was some expectation that had she run in the 1936 election, she would have been unopposed in both the primary and general elections.

In 1940, Greenway refused to support Roosevelt for another term, as she believed there should be a limit of two presidential terms.

Although Greenway had opposed the United States entering the war in Europe, after Pearl Harbor, she joined the war effort. She was elected to chair the American Women's Voluntary Services and the Arizona Inn was deemed essential to the war efforts in order to provide accommodations near the local air base and naval training schools. She is buried on the Dinsmore Homestead in Kentucky where she had been born.

In Phoenix, Greenway Road and several public schools are named for her second husband, John Campbell Greenway.

In 1981, Greenway was posthumously inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame as a member of the inaugural cohort.