MANDAN Historical Society

Working to Preserve & Promote Mandan's Heritage since 2004

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Ag Stn Centennial

History Harvest

TR-Coe Exhibit

WWII Exhibit

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Area History

Book: "Mantani"

The 1880s

Mandan Rodeo / Fair

School System History

The 1890s

The 1900s

1901 Pan Am Expo

1903 TR Visit to NDak

The 1910s

1910 Spring Flood

1911 Fair & Airplane Demo

1912 TR Whistle-Stop

The 1920s

Prohibition in Mandan

Mail Order Kit Homes

The 1930s

FDR Visit August 1936

The 1940s

The 1950s

1958 Lincoln Stamp FDC

Custer Drama / Trail West

The 1960s

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1st of the 21st

2010-Present

Area Landmarks

Cary Bldg - Mandan Drug

CCC Camp Chimney

Christ the King Church

Collins Av Civic Bldg

First Lutheran Church

First National Bank Bldg

First Presbyterian Church

Great Plains Academy

Great Plains Expermt Stn

Lewis & Clark Hotel

Mandan Hill

Mandan Theatre

MV Produce Warehouse

Methodist Church

NP Beanery

NP "Colonial" RR Depot

NPRR Freighthouse

NP Rail High Bridge

Roughrider Statue

St Joseph Church

WWar Memorial Bldg

Youth Correctional Center

Gone Forever

Central School

Collins Ave Courthouse

Cummins Building

Deaconess Hospital

Eielson Field

Emerson Inst/Opera House

First St Federal Building

Havana Club

Hotel Nigey

InterOcean Hotel

Liberty Memorial Bridge

Mandan Creamery & Produce

Mandan Flour Mill

Merchants Hotel

NP "Queen Anne" Depot

Original Passenger Depot

Palace Theatre

Peoples' Hotel

Rock Haven

Topic Theatre

Young's Tavern

Heritage Homes

Altnow-Smith Home

Dunlap-Harris Home

Ellis-Uden Home

Freeburg-Esser Home

Lyon-Weigel Home

McGillic Home

Olson-Brick Home

Parkins-Cooley Home

Stutsman-Wyatt Home

Swanson-Reichman Home

Welch-Ness Home

Endowment Fund

Genealogy Links

Biographies A-C

J D Allen

Franklin Anders

Richard Baron

James Bellows

George Bingenheimer

Margaret Bingenheimer

Philip Blumenthal

Elijah Boley

Frank Briggs

Leo Broderick

William Broderick

Frank Bunting

Lyman Cary

James Clark

Henry Coe

Viola Boley Coe

Daniel Collins

Elizabeth Custer

George Custer

Biographies D-L

Alice Dahners

Henry Dahners

C E V (Charles) Draper

Esther Davis

Tony Dean

Joseph Devine

Ronald Erhardt

John Forbes

Palma Fristad

Gilbert Furness

Aloysius Galowitsch

Frederic Gerard

Zalmon Gilbert

Charles Grantier

James Hanley Jr

James Hanley Sr

Mary Harris

C Edgar Haupt

Michael Lang

William Langer

Albert Lanterman

William Lanterman

Richard Longfellow

Rolland Lutz

Hiram Lyon

Biographies M-R

George Marback

Gary Miller

Lee Mohr

Margaret Naylor

John Newton

Anton Ness

John Osterhouse

George Peoples

Arthur Peterson

Nels Romer

Hoy Russell

Walton Russell

Antonie Rybnicek

Ervin Rybnicek

Hynek Rybnicek

Biographies S-Z

Margaret Schaaf

George Shafer

Benjamin Shaw

William Simpson

Anna Knox Stark

Mary Stark

Benjamin Stephenson

J O Sullivan

John Sullivan

Era Bell Thompson

Andrew E Thorberg

Ida Thorberg

C L Timmerman

George Toman

Earle Tostevin

Edwin A Tostevin Sr

Edwin D Tostevin Jr

Walter Tostevin

Felix Vinatieri

A B Welch

Levon West

Frank Wetzstein

Harry Wheeler

Philomena Yunck

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Viola Mae [Boley] Coe 1863-1943
Viola Mae was born April 20, 1863 to Elijah and Sarah (Llewellyn) Boley while they were living in Bourbon Township, Marshall County in Indiana.  Viola and brother Alphonso were the only two of the four children who would live to maturity. Viola's parents farmed, milled grain and raised and traded livestock until 1863, when they moved to Monona, Clayton County, Ohio near Sarah's family. In Ohio, they operated both a farm and small hardware business.
 
In August 18, 1877, Elijah and son Alphonse traveled to Dakota Territory where they selected a claim on the west bank of the Missouri River, northeast of the future city of Mandan.  Their claim was reportedly the fourth claim west of the Missouri and north of the Heart River. Sarah and Viola, arrived on February 21, 1878 into Bismarck by train.
 
The Boleys gradually built their homestead into a 990 acre farm. Elijah became one of Morton County's first commissioners and would play an enormous role in early civic matters in Mandan.

Gilbert Cabinet Card of Viola Boley Coe c. 1890
Like her husband, Viola Boley Coe was a medical doctor, graduating from Woman's Hospital Medical College of Chicago (one of several schools combined to become today's Feinberg Medical School at Northwestern University). She is likely the first female Dakota Territory resident to become a medical doctor.
 
Before graduating in 1889, she married Dr. Henry Waldo Coe on June 20, 1882 in Mandan at only 19 years of age. Viola Mae Boley Coe had three sons with her husband Henry; George Clifford born on January 17, 1885 in Mandan; Wayne Walter Coe born October 10, 1894 in Portland; and Earl Alphonso born August 7, 1896 in Portland.
 
In 1891 the couple moved to Portland, Oregon. While living there, she focused on philanthropic activities.  In 1907, her and her husband were among a group commissioned by her husband's close personal friend (and then President of the US) Theodore Roosevelt to travel to the Panama Canal Zone to report to the president on the working conditions during the construction of the project.

Viola and her well known husband Henry Waldo Coe went through a very public divorce in 1913. Viola Coe “instituted suit for the dissolution of their marriage contract and for the custody of two of their sons, aged 18 and 20 years.” She also brought suit against the Sanitarium Company of which her husband was the major stockholder of the company which held a “contract with the government for the care of the Alaska insane and the sanitariums that were built and operated so those contracts might be carried out.” In this suit Viola Coe claimed her portion of this contract.
 
The courts consolidated both of these suits because they were related. The lower court granted Viola Coe the custody of her sons, but the court would not give her the property “held by her trust.” She appealed this decision to the Oregon Supreme Court and she received one-third of the property involved. In a time where divorce and lawsuits were not very common, she chose her own life happiness over pleasing society norms.

Dr. Coe fought to achieve woman suffrage in Oregon. She was acting chair of the Oregon State Equal Suffrage Association. According to first generation suffrage leader Abigail Scott Duniway, Coe was a woman “able and tactful.” Coe was Duniway’s close associate for the campaign, and carried out Duniway’s work until the suffrage ballot passed in 1912.
 
Dr. Coe could lead in the time of need. She kept Duniway involved for she was the foundation of the Oregon cause, and Coe made sure she conferred with her often. Viola also lived in an era that thrived on mass media and knew it was important to reach Oregonians through advertising leaflets, speeches and galas that promoted this cause.
 
Viola Coe also founded several hospitals that were dedicated to the care of women and girls. She helped many women and “working girls” that were recuperating from ill-health but could not afford the stay in a hospital or receive proper care at home by operating boarding house for them.

Library of Congress File - National Women's Party Collection
Signing Oregon Suffrage Proclaimation <Click To Enlarge>
According to her obituary in the Oregon Journal, she devoted her time to the “church, club and philanthropic work.” She also spent her retirement caring for wildlife and directed her energy to conservation and the safety of birds. She founded a garden sanctuary for birds in Portland Heights.
 
Viola Coe, a physician for a half century, passed away at the age of eighty in Portland, Oregon on May 27, 1943. Her funeral service was presided over by her longtime pastor Dr. Raymond B. Walker.

She can be remembered for her dedication to women and the general welfare of the public. Viola Coe, M.D. was a woman of many roles; a medical doctor, feminist, suffragist, wife, divorcee, friend, woman of faith and leader.

The MHSoc's museum and office is located at 3827 30th Avenue NW; PO Box 1001; Mandan, ND 58554
Contact us at info@mandanhistory.org


Last Updated 03/28
/23    ©  2007-2023  Mandan Historical Society   All rights reserved