BURIED TOGHETER

Partner Anne Shelton Richardson

Queer Places:
Mamanasco Farm (now Richardson Park), 729 North Salem Road, Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877
Mountain Grove Cemetery and Mausoleum, 2675 North Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, United States

Edna Schoyer (December 5, 1880 - August 4, 1946) was born on December 5, 1880, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into the prominent family of Samuel Chadwick Schoyer and Eliza D. Preston Schoyer. Raised alongside her brothers, Barclay Preston Schoyer and William Edgar Schoyer, she was baptized at a Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh in June 1882. Growing up in a well-connected household, Schoyer developed a cosmopolitan worldview early in life, spending time living abroad in London, England, between 1907 and 1909.

Upon returning to Pennsylvania, Schoyer threw herself into the women's suffrage movement, emerging as a vital leader in the fight for voting rights. As chairman of the literature committee for the Equal Franchise Federation of Pittsburgh, she spearheaded massive public education campaigns. Schoyer oversaw the distribution of hundreds of thousands of suffrage fliers and political pamphlets across the region, personally managing the logistics of reaching male voters before critical elections to persuade them to support the cause.

In 1915, Schoyer's personal and political life merged when she formed a lifelong partnership with Anne Shelton Richardson. The couple established a shared home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, moving into a grand mansion built by Richardson on a 110-acre estate overlooking Mamanasco Lake. For decades, their Ridgefield residence functioned as both a private sanctuary and a bustling hub for political activism. The couple hosted suffrage meetings in their home and, following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, turned their energies toward organizing the newly formed League of Women Voters. Beyond their domestic and political life in Connecticut, Schoyer and Richardson traveled the world extensively together, with passenger logs documenting joint trips to South America, Europe, and the Pacific. On federal census records, they openly designated their relationship status as "Partner." Per the explicit instructions in Anne Richardson's will, the mansion was demolished following her death in 1965. She bequeathed the surrounding 110-acre estate to the town of Ridgefield, and today the site of their former home and property is preserved as Richardson Park.

Schoyer passed away on August 4, 1946, in New York City at the age of 65. Her death left Richardson devastated, highlighting the deep emotional bond they had forged over thirty-one years together. In the aftermath of her loss, Richardson took deliberate steps to honor Schoyer's memory while preserving the intimacy of their shared life. Richardson mandated in her will that upon her own passing, their beloved Ridgefield residence must never be occupied by anyone else and should instead be completely razed—a request that the Connecticut courts ultimately upheld after legal challenges. Richardson also established a perpetual memorial fund at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church to ensure altar flowers were placed in Schoyer's memory every Christmas and on the anniversary of her death. Upon Richardson’s passing nineteen years later, the two women were laid to rest together in the same plot under a shared headstone at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, ensuring their partnership remained unified in history.

References:


Public Faces, Secret Lives
by Wendy L. Rouse

Other references:

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