Laura DeForce Gordon - Summer 1993. Summary: This issue with many photos describes the life of Laura DeForce Gordon, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1838. By age 15 she was renowned for her spiritual trances and communication with the "other side." Although she had only a grammar-school education, Laura DeForce Gordon wrote eloquently and spoke persuasively. After meeting Susan B. Anthony she became a passionate suffragist. She married Dr. Charles Gordon and moved with him to New Orleans for two years. They made their way west with Laura giving lectures in mining camps. They arrived in Lodi in 1870 and Laura began advocating for women's rights. In 1871, before women had the right to vote, she unsuccessfully ran for the California State Senate. In 1878 she and her friend Clara Shortridge Foltz were instrumental in women getting the right to practice law in California. They became California's first two women lawyers. Laura actively practiced in Lodi, Stockton, and San Francisco while continuing her suffragist work. She paid taxes under protest, saying that as a nonvoter she was being forced into taxation without representation. She was a leading voice in the Central Valley Chinese Exclusion movement. In 1893 she spoke at Chicago's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair). She did not live to see women get the right to vote, dying of pneumonia in her Lockeford Street house just before the 1907 Tokay Carnival.