I walked through Bellefontaine cemetery in St. Louis last week on a tour of the women troublemakers buried there.

The “good trouble” kind, as the late Rep. John Lewis would describe them.

A wreath-laying ceremony brought me to the cemetery, as members of the National Women’s Political Caucus of St. Louis honored suffragist Virginia Louisa Minor.

Most people know about the history-making case of Dred and Harriet Scott suing for their freedom from the man who enslaved them. But there was another historic decision that came out of the St. Louis Courthouse.

In 1872, Minor tried to register to vote in an upcoming election. As expected, the registrar in St. Louis refused to let her because she was a woman. Minor and her husband filed a civil suit, which eventually made it to the Supreme Court. They argued that the Constitution granted women citizenship, which also included the right to vote. The High Court disagreed.

The suffragists took that defeat in the legal system and shifted course to focus on legislative change. It took decades of fighting before America ratified the 19th Amendment, which said citizens could not be denied the vote on the basis of sex.

That happened 100 years ago this month. Of course, the men in power still found ways to stop women and people of color from voting -- poll taxes, intimidation and other suppression tactics.

It may seem like a long time ago, especially to girls and young women today. But it wasn’t that long ago at all. There are tens of thousands American women alive today for whom it was illegal to vote in their lifetime. It was just 55 years ago that the Voting Rights Act really opened the doors for people who had been shut out from participating in our democracy.

For girls who have grown up with vast educational opportunities and career possibilities, this recent history should help explain why there’s still a persistent, significant wage gap between women and men in this country, why America is the only industrialized country that doesn’t guarantee paid maternity leave, and why our country has never been able to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

It wasn’t that long ago that women weren’t even considered worthy of the vote.

There has been a festive note to commemorations of the 19th Amendment anniversary, and that was the mood at the ceremony I attended, too. Obviously, there’s been progress.

In the last presidential election, a woman received nearly 3 million more votes than the man who took office. This year, a Black and Asian woman is on a major party ballot as the candidate for vice president for the first time. More women were elected to Congress in 2018 than ever before. And at the Bellefontaine ceremony I attended, Minor’s grave blessing was given by Ferguson Mayor Ella Jones: the first Black person and the first woman to lead the city that sparked another national movement for equal rights and justice.

But some of the obstacles suffragists faced a hundred years ago may sound recognizable.

There were an outspoken group of women who fought against their own right to vote. As more men got involved in the “Anti” movement, they argued for states’ rights and cast suffragists as socialists and “enemies of the state.”

That has a familiar ring to it.

The Antis were precursors to the conservative activist women who argued against the ERA. In this day and age, it’s hard to imagine what they found so objectionable in this language: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

It’s also easy to see the strategies of the modern-day Antis. Voters having to stand in lines for hours to cast a ballot during a global pandemic. Restrictive mail-in voting among those less likely to support the party in power. Fewer polling places, delayed ballots, “lost” mail.

The more things change.

I plan to bring my daughter, who will be voting in her first election in November, to place our “I voted” stickers on Minor’s gravestone. There’s something powerful in paying homage to the women who fought so hard to have us recognized as full citizens worthy of a voice.

To have our humanity recognized.

By the way, the county executive who denied Minor the right to vote is buried in the same cemetery.

I’ll wave as we walk by.

The Renauds’ pastor showed up at their home within an hour of them finding their 14-year-old daughter, Jadzia, unresponsive in her bed.

When he walked through the front door, Yoli Renaud, Jadzia’s mother, ran into his arms, weeping.

“I prayed and prayed, and she didn’t come back,” she cried.

The Renauds, of Ferguson, Missouri, had been following pandemic safety protocol for months, wearing masks and keeping a distance from others. But everything changed when Jadzia died.

Suddenly, their house was filled with first responders, many of whom were not wearing masks. And as people learned of Jadzia’s death, they wanted to hug the grieving family members. The Renauds needed the comfort of the warm and genuine embraces of people who cared for them.

But during a pandemic, hugs can be dangerous.

Jadzia had been diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan syndrome when she was a baby, but she had been taking medicine that controlled her symptoms and risks. During her freshman year of high school, she was active in the school’s theater program and mock trial team. She was looking forward to her quinceanera on Aug. 24. She had been laughing with her family the night before she went to bed for the last time.

In their shock, her parents, Josh and Yoli, also had to figure out how to bury their daughter without endangering anyone wanting to mourn with them.

“If it had been a few weeks earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to do the services,” Josh said. Every decision weighed on them. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt or sick because we were doing this.”

No one from Yoli’s family in Bolivia could travel to the United States for the funeral, despite desperately wanting to say their farewells.

Death stalked us this spring and summer. A study published last month in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the number of deaths in the United States due to any cause increased by approximately 122,000 from March 1 to May 30. The increase is 28% higher than the reported number of COVID-19 deaths.

During this time of “excess deaths,” as described by the scientists, I kept hearing news of people dying. Some felt removed -- parents of people I had known growing up, but no longer stayed in touch with, or distant relatives.

But so many others hit closer -- an elderly neighbor, a child’s teacher, a co-worker’s daughter, a friend’s brother, my college best friend’s in-laws. It was hard to see through the cloud of shock and sadness each personal news alert brought.

There was a week in June when I attended five funerals in the space of three days. One was Jadzia’s. Her father and I have worked together at the Post-Dispatch for years.

I arrived a few minutes before the visitation began at the family’s church. I wore a mask and considered keeping my hands in my pockets to avoid instinctively hugging Josh and Yoli.

But when I saw them standing next to her casket, their three beautiful younger children lined up next to them, I felt grief tighten my chest.

I wrapped my arms around Yoli and my tears fell on my mask.

How else does one mother respond to another who just lost her baby?

I left before the church started to fill with mourners, and watched the service remotely.

Josh shared a story at the service about Jadzia spotting swamp milkweed plants for sale at the farmers market a few years ago. She convinced her mom to buy some because she knew they attracted monarch butterflies. The next summer, monarchs began to arrive; Yoli and the kids raised dozens of them from caterpillars found on the plants. Once, Jazdia found a dying butterfly with a broken wing. She was devastated. Her mother helped her bury the butterfly in front of the milkweeds.

Yoli told Jadzia a Bible verse to comfort her.

If not for the pandemic, Jadzia’s abuelita would have been there to bury her granddaughter and comfort her daughter. Her paternal great-grandmother would have been there. The Renauds would have taken a trip to be with their family in Texas. People would have filled their home to comfort them.

Instead, they read cards sent in the mail and tributes posted on social media. They took comfort in phone calls, limited visits and meals dropped off at their door.

Recently, Josh posted an update on Facebook at the one-month anniversary of his daughter’s death.

“We wish the circumstances were different: that there was no coronavirus threat, that we could welcome people into our home to reminisce and (for) fellowship. But please know that we have been deeply blessed by each act of kindness,” he wrote.

“We feel your love and support despite the distance.”

More than 23 million parents are backed into a corner right now.

That’s how many parents the Brookings Institution estimates rely on school and child care programs while they go to work to be able to provide for their families. Their ability to work is essential to our country’s economic recovery.

But while our government will scramble to bail out airlines and banks and car manufacturers, you don’t hear the same kind of urgency around a child care bailout during this pandemic. No one has a good answer for what working parents required to return to their offices are supposed to do if it’s not safe for schools to reopen in person. There are children too young to stay at home alone whose parents may not have access to or cannot afford child care.

And in places where the coronavirus is surging, the answer is not to simply reopen schools -- putting teachers, staff and parents at risk.

The St. Louis Public Schools are considering learning centers where children would be supervised while receiving online lessons. But for parents like Mia Daugherty, a single mom in St. Louis, the fear of exposure to the virus means she will be keeping her 5-year-old daughter, Zara, at home for kindergarten.

“She’s not going to school until COVID numbers look a lot better than how they look now,” Daugherty said. “It doesn’t make sense to put my child’s life at risk, and the teachers, administrators and staff at risk. A lot of kids are asymptomatic, and I’m not willing to gamble on anyone’s life.”

Daugherty, who is Black, knows the health risks from COVID-19 are far greater for her community. She’s not sure how she will manage home-schooling her daughter while working full-time from home.

Zara had been doing exceptionally well before preschool ended in March and had been accepted into a gifted magnet school for the fall.

“It was much more difficult for (Zara) to focus on the last two months of work. I know her skills and progress are not where they could have been,” Daugherty said. She knows that virtual learning, especially for kindergartners, who learn best through play, is not the same as being in a classroom with peers and teachers. Zara was reading and writing on a first-grade level in pre-K, and now her mom is seeing a little bit of a decline in those skills.

“My plate is already so full,” she said. “I’m juggling multiple things, so I’m already stretching myself so thin. I take breaks to give her meals, but I haven’t had time to spend with her. This is what I have to do to survive, and in order for us to be able to live.”

She knows there are parents in even more dire circumstances -- those who don’t have a job and are facing eviction and financial ruin and those with children with disabilities who need special services. That’s not to mention the millions of children who rely on schools for meals and refuge from unsafe homes.

For now, Daugherty can’t even think about how she will balance the educational, social and emotional needs of her young daughter with a full-time job that demands her attention all day.

“I honestly can’t even cross that bridge of how I will home-school her ... It might send me into a panic attack,” she said.

Where is the sense of urgency for Zara and kids like her?

Where is the help for working parents who are critical to our economy?

For a country that has sidelined the needs of families for so long, this crisis has turned the cracks in our society into craters.

Politicians have ignored the desperation of 23 million parents at their own peril.

Now, it’s time for a reckoning.