Jane DeDecker recognized as Modern Suffragist through League of Women Voters nomination

Loveland Reporter-Herald

By Austin Fleskes

Loveland sculptor Jane DeDecker talks Thursday about how special it was to receive the Modern Suffragist award from the League of Women Voters of Colorado. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)

When the League of Women Voters of Colorado announced a Mother’s Day campaign to recognize statewide modern suffragists, Kathy Wilson, a member of the Larimer County chapter of the league, had one woman in mind to nominate.

A small version of Jane DeDecker’s Every Word We Utter sculpture can be seen near Foote Lagoon in Loveland. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)

“From the first time I heard about the program, the fundraiser for the league, Jane (DeDecker) just came to mind immediately because of the work she has done on the monument, all the research she has done,” she said. “I thought she was the perfect nominee.”

DeDecker, a Loveland artist who has worked for several years to get a women’s suffrage monument placed in Washington, D.C., said that the nomination came as a surprise. She said when getting the mail on Mother’s Day she found the certificate in her mailbox with her name written above the title “Modern Suffragist.”

“I opened the mailbox and I nearly cried,” she said, later adding “This is just something I believe in.”

Wilson said DeDecker’s work is something that will teach others.

“That is what Jane has been doing since the beginning,” she said. “She does it so well.”

With a copy of her piece Every Word We Utter standing near Foote Lagoon in Loveland DeDecker said whether they see her sculpture in Loveland or as a monument in the nation’s capital, women will be empowered.

“People will remember that,” she said. “People forget women’s history and having this piece reminds people. Otherwise they get shoved back in the history book.”

But, for now, she said the certificate is “definitely one that will be framed.”