04/14/2019
AFTER 92 YEARS UNMARKED GRAVE OF REMARKABLE BOISE WOMAN WILL HAVE HEADSTONE
This is an excerpt from the Idaho Statesman article on Corilla Robbins
Boise pioneer Corilla Robbins led a remarkable life. She crossed the plains from Missouri to Idaho, leading a team of prairie schooners with her husband and four children in 1876. She rode to Idaho City in Boise’s first horse-drawn taxi.
In 1903, when the first automobile arrived in Boise, a roadster, she was the first woman to take a ride. When the first airplane arrived in 1919, naturally Robbins, then 73, was among the first to jump aboard the bi-plane and fly over Boise. “That was some ride,” Robbins told the Idaho Statesman after the flight. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
What Robbins didn’t get when she died in 1927 at age 81 was a headstone. for 92 years, her grave in Pioneer Cemetery on Warm Springs Avenue has remained unmarked. Her husband Rube Robbins erected a 10-foot high pedestal that marks his grave but left nothing for her.
Corilla was prominent on her own and deserves recognition. She led the suffrage movement in Idaho, She toured Idaho establishing Rebekah lodges. She also cared for orphaned children in her home on Warm Spring Avenue. At age 79 Robbins was arrested for operating a maternity (“lying in”) hospital in her home without a license. A jury found her guilty. She was fined $50, equivalent to $722 today. The conviction was overturned on appeal.”
Doing a little research on my own, I found that Corilla Robbins was the third Rebekah Assembly President in the State of Idaho in 1895, and she was from Unity #8 in Boise.
Submitted by Jelene Baird, Past President
