There are moments when history doesn’t just sit in the walls—it rises up to join the room.
That’s how it felt this week when @Ruscombe Community welcomed the League of Women Voters Baltimore chapter to the former home of Madeleine LeMoyne Ellicott, founder and 20-year president of the LWV of Maryland. It was a gathering full of purpose, laughter, and the unmistakable sense that the women who built the League were, in some way, standing among us again.
The feeling became especially vivid when Sally Grant, the 90-plus-year-old granddaughter of suffragist Sadie Crockin, took the floor. Sally shared family stories of Sadie and Madeleine—two women who fought for voting rights long before they themselves could fully enjoy the freedoms they secured. Sally told us that when she married into the Crockin family, Sadie gave her a League membership as a wedding gift. The room laughed in recognition; everyone understood that Sadie was a force of nature, always working to strengthen the cause of women making a difference through civic education and engagement. In that moment, their legacy felt alive, not distant.
As I led a tour of the mansion afterward, it was hard not to sense how the work happening at Ruscombe today—community wellness, accessibility, women’s leadership—runs parallel to the values that built the League. The conversations that followed made that connection even clearer. Members shared their passions, their work in public health, their creativity, their desire to collaborate, and even their hopes of renting space here. Their interest in our programs—Cooking for Health, community events, our accessibility efforts—felt like a natural extension of the same spirit that energized Madeleine’s living room a century ago.
Later, as the LWV committees shared updates on high school and college voter registration, I was struck by how much their work mirrors what gave Madeleine and Sadie their light: empowering people—especially the young, the unseen, and the underestimated—to step into their full voice.
At a time when our public life can feel fractured, listening to these women talk about meeting young voters was like opening a window. Their stories were full of courage, optimism, and a kind of everyday heroism that rarely makes headlines but always moves history forward.
Standing in Madeleine’s home, surrounded by the modern League’s volunteers, I could almost hear her words echo back to us:
“The work continues.”
And it does—through them, through us, and through the partnerships we are just beginning to imagine together.
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