No excuses given - Jefferson City native was one of first women lawyers in Missouri, later murdered in Kansas City

Louise Byers was raised in Jefferson City and graduated from the local high school with honors. She later attended law school in Kansas City, becoming one of the first women lawyers in Missouri. For many years, she fought for equality for women in the legal profession. She was 90 years old when she was found brutally murdered in her Kansas City home in 1980. Courtesy of Jeremy P. Ämick

Louise Byers’ mother descended from the Asel family, who had immigrated to Cole County in the 1840s. After her mother met and married Charles Byers, Louise was born in 1889 and went on to spend most of her formative years in the Jefferson City community, where she not only excelled at academics but earned the distinction of being one of the first women attorneys in the state.
 
Yet many years later, after she was long retired from her chosen profession, Louise Byers became a statistic representing a spate of crime in Kansas City after being found murdered in her home.
 
Graduating with honors from Jefferson City High School in 1907, Byers later moved with her family to Kansas City, where many of the Asel family had settled.  Her father worked for many years as a cable car conductor in the city and later as a cashier for Metropolitan Street Railways. Louise, however, soon embarked on the pursuit of higher education.
 
“Miss Louise Byers, formerly of (Jefferson City), but lately of Kansas City, is now a full-fledged lawyer with full rights and authority to practice law in Missouri,” the Jefferson City Post-Tribune printed on July 1, 1918. “The entire class of ninety-seven students passed the examinations. There were ten women in the number,” the newspaper added.
 
The following year, in June 1919, Byers graduated from the Kansas City School of Law, inviting some of her Asel relatives from Jefferson City to attend her commencement ceremony. Within a short time, she was offering her services as a notary public and practiced civil law from her office in the Commerce Building in Kansas City.
 
“Mrs. Masie Jones Ragen and Miss Louise Byers, lawyers, will leave Saturday for Minneapolis to attend the first annual meeting of the Women Lawyers’ Association…,” the Kansas City Star reported on August 23, 1923. “They will attend the meeting of the American Bar Association, which convenes August 29 in Minneapolis.”
 
Throughout her career, Byers used the education she had earned to promote causes on behalf of women who might not otherwise be given a voice in professional circles. In December 1926, she was invited to speak about equality before the Kansas City branch of the National Woman’s Party—a political organization established to champion the cause of women’s suffrage.
         
The Kansas City Bar Association voted to reject from membership in its organization both Byers and a fellow woman attorney in 1925. This earned chastisement from the public, many of whom eloquently disputed such activities through letters to the local newspaper. Remarking on the exclusion of Byers and fellow woman attorney Tiera Farrow from the association, Mrs. E.E. Thomas wrote to the Kansas City Star on February 18, 1925, “These women would grace any institution.”
 
Thomas continued, “Knowing these two women lawyers as I do, I am competent to say I would be glad to know that all our grown boys were in such company. To hear Mrs. Farrow’s eloquence and the immaculate enunciation of little Miss Byers would, by contrast, put to shame most men who are public speakers.”


William C. Scarritt, the new president of the Kansas City Bar Association, announced in 1927 during an address that he advocated for the membership of women attorneys in the organization. But after waiting several years and seeing no change, Byers and several of her contemporaries took matters into their own hands.
 
“Nine years ago, two young women lawyers applied for membership in the Kansas City Bar Association—and were denied,” the Daily American Republic shared on August 9, 1934. “Now, along with 25 other attorneys of their sex, they have incorporated the Women’s Bar Association of Kansas City.”
         
Later granted membership in the Missouri Bar Association, Byers remained a popular speaker for women’s groups and organizations in the Kansas City area throughout the next several years. She was also committed to her faith and was a member of the Unity Church on the Plaza.
 
After investing more than two decades in her work as an attorney, Byers accepted a position in the prayer ministry with the Unity School of Christianity in 1941. She remained with the school until 1966, responding to correspondence received and performing a variety of administrative tasks.
 
Never marrying nor having any children, the retired attorney slipped quietly into retirement. She found great pleasure in doing yard work until suffering a concussion from a fall sometime around the mid-1970s. From that point on, she occupied much of her free time by reading. 
 
“The beating death of a pioneer woman lawyer here, who would have celebrated her 91st birthday today, has sent ripples of fear through the neighborhood where she lived,” the Kansas City Star alarmingly reported on February 12, 1980.
 
“The body of Miss Louise Byers, a second cousin to former city councilman, Arthur E. Asel Jr., was found Sunday on a second-floor landing of her home at 1315 E. 75th. The autopsy Monday by … Jackson County Medical Examiner, revealed Miss Byers … had been beaten to death.”
 
It was the 11th homicide of the year in Kansas City but after a five-day investigation, 29-year-old Glenn B. Mansfield was charged with capital murder. Mansfield was later convicted of second-degree murder and received a life sentence. 
 
Byers was laid to rest in Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City.
 
Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, remarked, “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.”
 
Likewise, Byers never apologized for her drive to succeed in a profession dominated by men, simply wanting to be judged by the merit of her work and accomplishments. The legacy she left was that of inspiration, helping generations of aspiring women attorneys to experience their own professional successes.
 
Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of the historical compilation “Moments on the Moreau.”  

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