BLOOMINGTON — In 1924 Florence Fifer Bohrer of Bloomington became the first woman elected to the Illinois Senate. Today, she is rightfully remembered as a pioneer in women’s rights in Illinois.

Much less known is the story of Mary Bedell Funk, who followed Fifer Bohrer’s lead into the rough-and-tumble, chauvinistic world of politics. At a time when few women ran for elective office, Funk made three unsuccessful attempts to win a Republican Party primary, losing races for state representative in 1936; state senator in 1940 and U.S. congressman (or rather, congresswoman) in 1942.

Born in 1888 in upstate New York, Mary Bedell attended high school in Washington, D.C., and it was there she married Edward Morris. They lived in Brooklyn and possibly elsewhere before Edward died in 1913, six years into the marriage.

Mary’s second husband was Frank Hamilton Funk of Bloomington, who served in the Illinois Senate before making an unsuccessful run for governor as the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party candidate in 1912. He then returned to the Republican fold as a congressman, serving three terms from 1921 to 1927.

Frank Funk’s first wife, Florence May Risser, died in 1923. It’s safe to say that he was anything but threatened by strong-willed women. Florence, much like Funk’s second wife, Mary, was a well-educated, no-nonsense community leader attuned to public affairs. Decades before the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, Florence Risser and Mary Bedell were independent sorts not afraid to mix it up with the big boys.

It’s likely that Frank Funk met Mary Bedell in Washington, D.C., during his tenure in the U.S. House, for the widow and widower were married in the nation’s capital on Nov. 8, 1924. Back in Bloomington, the couple lived in a sprawling brick home at 1008 N. Main St.

At the time of her first run for public office, Mary Funk, who earned degrees from Columbia University in New York City and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., was best known as a lecturer.

In early March 1936, Funk kicked off her campaign for state representative at the Hotel Rogers in downtown Bloomington. She stressed her political independence in the upcoming Republican primary. “I am not running against or with any candidate, but solely for myself and what I stand for,” she told her supporters.

Unfortunately for Funk, her first campaign ended in resounding defeat. She garnered only 9,499 votes, or 22 percent, which placed her third in the four-way GOP primary.

If elected, Funk would have joined just 2 other women in the 205-member Illinois General Assembly. Both were state representatives, and one, Lottie Holman O’Neill of Downers Grove, had the distinction of being the first woman elected to the state legislature in 1922. It was two years later that Florence Fifer Bohrer became the state’s first female state senator.

In the face of her electoral defeat Mary Funk kept busy on the lecture circuit. In late September 1939, for instance, she opened a “new series” at the YWCA, which included a discussion on the Nazi invasion of Poland.

She returned to the campaign trail in April 1940, coming in third in a closely contested state Senate primary. After Frank Funk’s death in November of that year, Mary moved into the Lafayette Apartments on East Washington Street. (Watson Gailey purchased and razed the North Main Street residence in the early 1940s to make way for his eye clinic).

Funk then spurned the quiet, respectable life of a society widow and plunged back into politics, and in 1942 she waged a quixotic primary challenge against Leslie C. Arends, the incumbent congressman. Arends, eight years into his 40-year career as a Republican backbencher, was a ripe target for the feisty challenger. “For eight years Mr. Arends has done nothing,” declared a Funk campaign flier. “The ol’ rockin’ chair’s got him!”

To the surprise of no one, Arends trounced Funk 23,659 to 7,795 votes, a 3-to-1 margin. Funk, perhaps accepting the fact that she could not crack the local GOP establishment, returned to the lecture circuit for good.

Mary Bedell Funk passed away on June 11, 1957, and her ashes were spread at Funk’s Grove Cemetery.