Earlier this year, 102-year-old Geraldine "Jerry" Emmett made headlines after being named an honorary delegate from the state of Arizona at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, before speaking at various Clinton campaign events. Born in 1914, before women were given the right to vote, the retired-educator said that Hillary's campaign proved just how far politics has come over the past 100 years.
And last Tuesday, the self-proclaimed "Centenarian for Hillary" made her lifelong wish come true when she dropped an early ballot paper alongside her son Jim at her local Arizona polling centre - and wearing a freshly pressed white pantsuit.
![Jerry Emmett with Hillary Clinton after she cast her ballot.](/web/20161110185009im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/l/a/q/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gslak7.png/1478662809931.jpg)
"It was the greatest thrill of my life; I just wish my mother and dad could see all of this," Emmett told Tucson News Now after submitting her vote for Hillary Clinton.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20161110185009im_/http://i.imgur.com/qVGjtBf.jpg)
![Christine Adams, aged 102.](/web/20161110185009im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/l/c/d/j/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gslak7.png/1478662809931.jpg)
She still remembers the day her mother cast her first ballot in 1920 after the 19th amendment was ratified. "They all came down to watch the women get to vote," she said. "Even the men were happy and they were all cheering and knew something good was happening."
When asked about Clinton's rival, Emmett said: "If I had [a student] that talked like Donald Trump, I'd of washed their mouth out with soap."
Emmett also told AP: "I am getting to vote for Hillary Clinton for president, which has been my dream since Bill Clinton was president."
Emmett is joined by a legion of older women who have proudly cast their vote for Clinton, including another 102-year-old woman, Christine Adams. When asked is she thought she would be voting for a female President right after Obama, she doesn't wait for the question to be concluded before exclaiming she never thought she would.
![Estelle Liebow Schultz, 98](/web/20161110185009im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/l/c/7/7/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gslak7.png/1478662809931.jpg)
"I pray to God to let her win, and give Hillary the strength to carry on the job," Adams told NBC in East Stroudsburg, where the she lives.
"I like Hillary Clinton. She knows our country ... She knows women in all walks of life. I think what she don't know, there are both men and women that may help her."
As the granddaughter of an enslaved woman, Adams didn't cast her first ballot until age 34, after leaving the South and passing New York's now-illegal literacy test. And while she is still ecstatic about President Obama's success, she is awed to voted for a female president.
After raising 11 children while working two jobs, Adams also told NBC: "Men want to stay on top, in my way of saying it. They don't think you're capable. You're capable of bringing them in the world, helping them go to school, keeping them clean and this, that and the other, but you're not capable of ruling over them?"
The women have been included in the US project, 'I waited 96 years' which has profiles on what the vote means to more than 120 women aged in their 90s.The project was spurred by comments made by a retired educator who went viral after her granddaughter Sarah Bunin Beno shared the 98-year-old's absentee vote on Facebook.
A friend, Tom Fields-Meyer, suggested they create the larger 'I waited 96 years' project, and alongside her mother Roberta and Field-Meyer's wife Shawn, they launched the site on October 16.
Estelle told the '96 years' project: "Recently, I was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and am now in home hospice. I am following this campaign carefully, and I decided that I would like to live long enough to see the election of our first woman president.
"When I was marking my absentee ballot for Hillary Clinton, it occurred to me that this wish is even more poignant, because I was born in 1918, two years before women achieved the right to vote. To see such an accomplishment in my lifetime is momentous. I encourage all of my fellow nonagenarians to follow me in marking your ballot with a sense of pride in a life long lived and a country making history."
With Tuscon News Now