Our Past Is Present September 14, 2018

September 14, 2018

            You are reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            Laura Rohrer Bauman was a longtime local resident of Junction City with the distinction of being the first woman lawyer in Kansas.  She and her family lived on what was then the outskirts of our town on West Sixth Street in the vicinity of where the Westside Shopping Center is now. 

            Laura graduated with the class of 1915 from Junction City High School in the building which is now our Museum at the corner of Sixth and Adams Streets. Following high school, Laura attended Washburn University in Topeka.  Her father had wanted to be a lawyer and wanted his son to become a lawyer.  Laura’s brother did not want to be a lawyer, so she decided to take that career path.

            After completing her undergraduate work at Washburn, Laura became one of only three women enrolled at Northwestern University’s School of Law in Chicago.  She graduated in 1921.  She passed her Kansas bar exams, was sworn in by the Kansas Supreme Court and returned to her home in Junction City. 

            In 1934, Laura moved from her office on East 8^th Street to a new structure at 811 North Washington to house an abstracting company.  She met Ernest Bauman, who was putting the finishing touches on the new office building.  They became best friends and eventually married in 1945. Laura retired in 1954.  She regularly traveled to Europe, was a charter member and was involved in the founding of the Geary County Historical Society in 1972 and the creation of the GCHS Museums in the early 1980’s.  She died at the age of 99 in 1997. 

            And… that’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.