Background
Rachel Allen was born in Ogden, Utah on March 11, 1859. She grew up in Kanarraville, Utah and taught school there.
Rachel Allen was born in Ogden, Utah on March 11, 1859. She grew up in Kanarraville, Utah and taught school there.
Rachel married William Berry in 1879. They arrived in Saint Johns, Arizona on January 27, 1882. William Berry became a leading rancher and cattleman with the horses and herd of cattle he had brought from Utah.
In 1912, shortly after it became a state, Arizona gave women suffrage, so Arizona"s women gained the right to vote eight years before universal suffrage occurred in the United States.
Women in Arizona soon after ran for elected office. Her term representing Apache County began on January 11, 1915.
She worked to adopt a bill for Arizona"s current state flag. After she completed her term in the House of Representatives, Berry was appointed the chairman of the Apache County Child Welfare Board.
She was president of the local Relief Society and the Mutual Improvement Association of her church.
She was the trustee of the school in Saint Johns. Berry died at her home, in Phoenix, on Thanksgiving Day, 1948. She was inducted into the Arizona Women"s Hall of Fame in 1984.
