Born in Pecotonica, Illinois on January 4th 1858
Addie began teaching school at sixteen while still taking classes at Iowa State
Normal School. In 1880 she married
Elmore M. Billings, attorney, and they settled in Geneva, Nebraska.
Addie because her husband’s secretary and became very
familiar with the law. She was also a correspondent for the Omaha newspapers,
which allowed her to get free publicity for her husband; when he won a case she would include it in
her column and when he didn’t she would simply forget to mention it. In 1887 she was admitted to the Nebraska bar
and became Elmore’s law partner. They
moved to Benicia, California for Elmore’s health but it did not seem to help
and he retired. She continued to
practice law joining the Wallace Rutherford firm in Napa.
In 1908 the Billings invested in a wine vineyard near
Calistoga and for many years Addie served as executive secretary of the
California Grape Growers Association.
When the Woman’s Temperance Union, of which she was also a member,
discovered her affiliation with grape growers, she was “read out” of the
organization.
In her retirement she took up rug hooking and made more than
fifty beautiful rugs. She died in her
home in Berkeley in 1948 at the age of ninety.
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