The E.J. Roberts Mansion in Browne’s Addition has been restored to accurately reflect its past. Some of the mansion’s historical photos depict women who lived at the end of the 19th century, when the mansion was built. They wore floor-length dresses then, and women couldn’t move very fast in those dresses.

Society moved at a slower pace, too. Everyone had a place. A woman’s place was generally not in politics or in the voting booth, though Idaho had given women the right to vote in 1896 and Washington state would do so in 1910. By 1920, the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the right for all women. Also in the 1920s, women’s skirts got shorter, and women moved more freely in their clothes and throughout society.

Last week, about 50 women, many wearing pantsuits, gathered in the rooms and gardens of the E.J. Roberts Mansion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the League of Women Voters in Spokane. Women who once served in elected office mingled with those serving now. Also in the crowd were new members of the league as well as women who joined long ago. Betty Banks signed up in 1954, because, she said, “I needed to leave the kids once in a while and talk about world affairs.”

The day of the celebration, Hillary Clinton – the first serious female candidate for president – was fighting to stay in the race. But the buzz was not on the past or the present. The league is always looking ahead. A busy election season has begun again. Idaho residents voted in their primary Tuesday. Candidate filing week in Washington begins Monday, and the state’s primary will be held Aug. 19.

The league cultivates the culture of informed voting, because they were founded just six months before women finally received the right. According to the league’s history, the national group “began as a mighty political experiment designed to help 20 million women carry out their new responsibilities as voters.”

From its inception, the national league considered the right to vote a civic responsibility. To choose not to vote was as unacceptable as throwing away an expensive gift without even unwrapping it. For 60 years, the League of Women Voters in Spokane has made it easier for Spokane residents to exercise their civic responsibility, to unwrap the gift.

The best thank you to the league, after six decades of service, would be to register to vote, if you haven’t. Get informed, if you aren’t. And then, of course, be sure to vote.