Background
Ruth Sayre was born on January 25, 1896, in Indianola, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of a local banker and granddaughter of an important early benefactor of local Simpson College.
Iowa's premier farm spokeswoman
Ruth Sayre was born on January 25, 1896, in Indianola, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of a local banker and granddaughter of an important early benefactor of local Simpson College.
Ruth Sayre attended Simpson College, where she majored in German and was strongly influenced by the socialist outlook of her English professor, Aubrey Goodenough.
In early 1922 Ruth Sayre became involved in the Farm Bureau, an organization then in its infancy. She volunteered to help organize the women’s branch of the Farm Bureau in her county. She urged women to improve their lives. Sayre’s gifts as a talented speaker and organizer within the women’s division of the Farm Bureau did not go unnoticed, and she rose quickly through its leadership ranks, becoming county chair in 1925 and district chair in 1930. Ruth Sayre tirelessly promoted the ideals of the Farm Bureau women, such as better schools, libraries, and rural health care. She organized new groups, gave home demonstrations in 1938, becoming the director for the Women of the American Farm Bureau. In the 1930s she became involved with the Associated Countrywomen of the World, eventually becoming president of that international organization in 1947.
In 1949 Ruth Sayre also became president of the Associated Women of the American Farm Bureau, meaning that she was simultaneously head of the 1.5 million women of the Farm Bureau and the 6- million-member Associated Countrywomen organizations.
In the early 1960s, she served as the rural chair of the Iowa Heart Association, Iowa chair of Women for Nixon-Lodge in 1960, and Simpson College trustee.
As the only women member appointed by President Eisenhower to his national agricultural advisory commission, Ruth Baxton Sayre received national recognition for her knowledge of agricultural problems and her many years of service to farm people.
Sayre's best-known efforts on behalf of rural Americans were through the Farm Bureau and the organization she helped found - Associated Country Women of the World. She also served on the advisory committee to the United States Secretary of Labor and the National Safety Council and was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the National Civilian Defense Committee. In addition, she held posts in two United Nations organizations.
Ruth Baxton Sayre was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1976.
Called "the First Lady of the Farm" during her lifetime, Ruth Sayre was known as a genuinely humble, "|homey kind of person" who never forgot her Iowa roots or the farm women who looked to her for continued leadership.
