Tiffin home to first women lawyers 150 years ago

Tiffin is celebrating the 150th anniversary this year of Ohio's first two female attorneys. Sisters Nettie and Florence Cronise were Tiffin natives. A historical marker on the Seneca County Justice Center grounds marks the 1873 milestone. Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, the first woman to lead the Ohio Supreme Court, helped dedicate a marker in honor of the Cronise sisters in October 2013. Nettie (1843-1923) applied for admission to the Ohio Bar on April 4, 1873, and she successfully argued her case in front of a panel of judges despite opposition. Information from the Seneca County Museum said Nettie was supported by leading local attorneys, including William Harvey Gibson and George Seney. Within a year, Florence followed her sister, and the two women opened the first female-owned law practice in Ohio, N. & F. Cronise – achieving the distinction nearly 50 years before women were given the right to vote. "The sisters started an office on the same footing as males," said Seneca County Museum Director Theresa Sullivan during her presentation outlining the lives of Nettie and Florence. In 1879, a law was passed that allowed them to practice law in federal courts, and the Cronise sisters were admitted to practice at the federal district court in Toledo. The sisters were born to Dr. Jacob Staub and his wife, Katherine Barbara Cronise, daughter of state Sen. Henry Cronise and an early settler of Tiffin. The parents divorced when they were children and Katherine and her children moved into her parents' house on South Washington Street. Their last names were changed to Cronise. "Henry may have adopted his granddaughters," Sullivan said. "In either case, the legislature acted to change their names." A third sister, Alice, died at age 12 in July 1855. Nettie attended then Heidelberg College and then the State Normal School at Bloomington, Indiana, to become a teacher. Sullivan said then she switched careers and studied law. She married Nelson Lutes, another attorney, and in 1880, she began to practice with her husband. Sullivan said Lutes needed his wife's help because he was nearly deaf. Using forms of sign language, Nettie assisted her husband in understanding court proceedings. When Lutes died in 1900, Nettie continued in sole practice until she was joined by one of her three daughters, Evlyn Latta Lutes (1877–1968), who was admitted to the bar in 1905. Florence attended high school in Princeton, Illinois, and studied to become a teacher, graduating from then Heidelberg College in 1965 and receiving her master's of arts degree from Heidelberg in 1869. She taught school in Illinois for a while and served as principal of Tiffin High School for a time before deciding to follow her sister into law. Today, the Ohio State Bar Association gives the Nettie Cronise Lutes Award to recognize a woman lawyer who has improved the legal profession through her own high level of professionalism and who has opened doors for other women and girls.