Introduction by Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar
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Lizzie Koontz Weeks, Introduction by Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar. Included in Part II: Black Women Suffragists, <p>Introduction by Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar. (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2018)</p>
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By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, SUNY Binghamton
Lizzie Koontz was born in the District of Columbia in 1879. We know nothing about her parents or her upbringing, but as a young adult in the District she assisted her brothers, who ran three cafes, "noted for their cleanliness, artistic arrangement and general business air." She visited a brother in Portland, Oregon in 1900 and never left. She married George W. Weeks in Portland in 1904 and joined the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1906.
The couple resided at 444 Benton St. and had no children as reported in Portland censuses. According to the 1900 census, George W. Weeks, born in Ohio, was a black, single boarder in Portland, who worked as a crockery packer. Ten years later he was a packer of glassware, married to Lizzie K. City directories place George in Portland as a packer as early as 1889. For two years in the early 1890s, he was listed as a porter for Charles Hegele & Co. Lizzie's first directory listings began in 1914 and she and George were still listed together as late as 1930 and 1931. They lived at 444 Benton St. from 1910 until at least 1931. By 1920 George and Lizzie owned their house free of mortgage and Lizzie's 18-year-old niece, Lizzie Koonce, lived in the household. Lizzie Weeks worked in a probation office in 1920. We cannot find the couple in the 1930 census for Portland, though they were living in the city at that time. Our latest source for the couple comes in the black weekly newspaper, The Advocate, on July 1932, describing a visit of a South Carolina family to the Weeks's "lovely house" at 444 Benton St.