With a personality and force of character that go unrivaled among Moscow’s matriarchs, Grace Wicks was a well-known community member for nearly forty years. The staunch Republican was one of the first women elected to the Latah County Board of Commissioners. Beginning in 1975, Wicks wrote a weekly column in the local newspaper, missing only two deadlines until she put down her pen just weeks prior to her passing in 1997. Grace was also heavily involved in the creation of the Latah Care Center, which replaced the County Farm (or Poor Farm) located north of Moscow. Below you can read Grace’s own account of how that project began, which was published in a 1993 volume of the Latah Legacy. She was truly a woman of action.
To read more about the Latah Care Center, see Latah Legacy 22, no. 1.