Lucille May Grace

Who was Lucille May Grace?

Lucille May Grace, a.k.a. Mrs. Fred Columbus Dent, Sr., was the first woman to attain statewide elected office in Louisiana. A Democrat, "Miss Grace," as she preferred to be called, became Register of the State Land Office in 1931 on appointment of Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr. She succeeded her father, who died in office, and she was elected in her own right in 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, and 1956.

Lucille Grace was born in Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, located south of Baton Rouge, to Fred J. Grace and the former May Dardenne. She graduated in 1919 from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau near Opelousas in St. Landry Parish. She thereafter received a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She was secretary-treasurer of her LSU freshman class, the first female to have attained that distinction. She was also a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Though she married Fred Columbus Dent, Sr., of Baton Rouge in 1933, she kept the name "Miss Lucille May Grace" because that was how voters recognized her. While Miss Grace was of an "aristocratic" bearing, she ran on the "populist" Long ticket and became well liked among her state's voters, both in the Long faction and the anti-Long group as well. A newspaper editor wrote of Miss Grace in 1939 that: "the mere placing her name on a state ticket means she will be returned... to the position of Register of the State Land Office by a larger vote than she received four years ago..."