Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Marguerite Gove, 1877-1969
By Robert Fernandez, Assistant Professor, Prince George's (MD) Community College
Marguerite Gove was born Daisy Pannill on February 1877 in San Francisco, the fifth child of Walter Pannill (1841-1913) and Carrie Reid Jenkins (1848-1895). Walter Pannill was the son of William Pannill (1794-1870), a wealthy slave owner of Petersburg, Virginia. During the Civil War, Walter Pannill enlisted in a company that became part of the 12th Virginia Infantry and saw action at a number of key battles, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the siege of Richmond. In the final months of the war, he was operating as a Confederate spy in Washington DC, where he was captured and sentenced to hang. He was the last man pardoned by President Abraham Lincoln and was released from prison the day of Lincoln's assassination.
Following the war, Walter Pannill became an auctioneer, a trade he had learned auctioning human beings on his father's plantation. In 1871 or 1872, he permanently relocated to St. Louis and worked for auction firms there, though in the late 1870s apparently he had his own auction house in San Francisco, where Daisy was born.
Daisy and her sister May followed in their mother's footsteps and became journalists, the former writing for the society pages of newspapers in St. Louis and Milwaukee. On October 1, 1903, Daisy Pannill married Henry W. Blodgett (1876-1959), future US District Attorney for St. Louis and son of the Medal of Honor winner Wells H. Blodgett (1839-1929). They lived at 5428 Delmar Blvd. in St. Louis. She was granted a divorce in 1911, after testifying to his violent temper and the fact that he kicked her out of their house the previous year.
Daisy Pannill moved in with her sister in Milwaukee and at some point after the divorce began going by the name Margaret and then Marguerite. While writing for the Milwaukee Journal, she met George R. Gove (1881-1970). They obtained a marriage license in late December and were soon on their way to Washington, DC, where Gove would take up the post of private secretary to US Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher.
In Washington, DC, Marguerite Gove became a regular attendee and speaker at suffrage events. She was active in the planning of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession as vice chair of the Office Hospitality Committee and appears in the procession's official program. Aside from speaking about her experiences with the procession, there does not appear to be any record of further suffrage activities by her and she does not appear in Stanton et al's History of Woman Suffrage.
Eventually, the couple settled in New York City for the rest of their lives. George Gove became a housing expert and executive. In the 1920s, Marguerite Gove worked in the film industry. She was a scenario editor for the New York-based Bray Studios and teamed with Ora Carter Colton on a series of pioneering educational films. She also engaged in some early attempts to capture lightning on motion picture film. A story written by Gove was the basis for the 1924 film Lend Me Your Husband, starring Doris Kenyon and David Powell.
At the end of their lives, the Goves lived in Peter Cooper Village, a Manhattan housing development whose creation George Gove was responsible for overseeing. She died on November 1, 1969. Marguerite and George Gove's papers are at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Marguerite Gove, 1913. Official Program of the March 1913 Suffrage Parade, p. 14.
Sources:
Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018.
Garside, Frances L. "The Royal Road to Learning," Dearborn Independent, January 3, 1920.
"George Gove, 89, Housing Expert [obituary]," New York Times, May 6, 1970.
George W., George R., and Marguerite Gove Papers, 1833-1963, Wisconsin Historical Society, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00358
"Maj. Walter Pannill Dead," Washington Post, March 4, 1913.
"Mrs. Blodgett Gets a Divorce; $2000 Alimony,"St. Louis Post-Dispatch vol. 63, no. 247, April 24, 1911.
"Mrs. George Gove [obituary]," New York Times, November 2, 1969.
"Mrs. Margaret Blodgett to Marry Milwaukean," St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 16, 1911.
Moore, John C. "Walter Pannill", Confederate Military History, A Library of Confederate States History... vol. 9, Clement A. Evans, ed.(Atlanta, 1899), p. 379-380.
Official program - Woman suffrage procession, Washington, D.C. March 3, 1913.
San Francisco, California, City Directory, 1876, 1877.
"Walter Pannill, War Spy Pardoned By Lincoln, Dies," St. Louis Star, February 25, 1913.
"When Lightning Begins to Zigzag, Mrs. Gove gets Her Camera," New York Tribune, October 24, 1920.
"Women Producers of Moving Pictures," New York Times, April 20, 1919.