Sarah Platt-Decker

Sarah Platt Decker was a women’s rights advocate. Decker was married three times, and widowed three times.  After losing all her possessions to her husband’s family upon his death, Sarah Sophia Chase Platt-Decker realized that women had no legal rights. She became a lifelong suffragist and fiercely dedicated to equal rights for women.

After her second marriage, she moved to Denver and led a large relief effort for miners during the Panic of 1893. That made her a public figure. Her local influence grew quickly, and she became the first woman to serve on the State Board of Pardons. She was the first president of the Denver Women’s Club and became national president of the Federation of Associated Women’s Clubs. 

Throughout her career, Platt-Decker was a passionate and magnetic speaker, but her lively good humor and common sense powered her through life. She possessed a brilliant mind. The Omaha Daily Bee quoted a Denver newspaper stating that “Decker was a woman who stands for all that is progressive, all that is good and all that is womanly.” The Decker Library Branch in Denver is named after Sarah.