Dixie Cornell Gebhardt

It became the official flag of the state in 1921.

• Name — Dixie Cornell Gebhardt • Birth Name — Dixie Cornell • Born — 18 November 1866 • Birthplace — Knoxville, Iowa, U.S. • Died — 16 October 1955 • Place of death — Knoxville Iowa, U.S. • Known for — Designer of Iowa State flag • Spouse — George Tullis Gebhardt

• Illustration — Dixie Cornell Gebhardt, c. 1895 Dixie May Cornell was born on November 18, 1866, in Knoxville, Iowa to Norman Riley Cornell and Mary Fletcher Timmonds. Her father, a pioneer Knoxville physician who served as an army surgeon in the American Civil War with the Iowa Infantry, named his trotting horses, "Iowa Belle," "Jim Dick," and "Jackie" after his three girls. According to her obituary, her mother called her "Dixie" for the south-land and her Green Valley home in Kentucky but friends and relatives also referred to her as "Dickie." With the exception of a year spent at the Visitation School for Girls in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1883, she lived all her life in Knoxville. She graduated from Knoxville Public Schools in 1885.

She taught briefly after graduating from Knoxville Public Schools in 1885 but returned home to care for her aging parents. On March 20, 1887, she became a member of Knoxville's Chapter M of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, an international women's organization. During her long membership, she served as chapter president and also held offices in the state and supreme chapters. In June 1900, she married George Tullis Gebhardt. Originally a member of Abigail Adams Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution (Des Moines), Gebhardt became the organizer and charter member of Mary Marion Chapter of DAR (Knoxville) in 1917. She served as Iowa DAR recording secretary (1913–1916), state regent (1916–1918), and later as a DAR genealogist at Continental Hall in Washington, D.C. (dates unknown). She worked for several years for the Red Cross at the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Knoxville and was also active in the Democratic Party.

• Illustration — The current state flag of Iowa, designed by Cornell Gebhardt. The Iowa state flag design was commissioned by Iowa's Governor William Harding and the state Council of Defense in May 1917. It was originally used as a regimental flag for Iowa guardsmen serving along the Mexican border during World War I. It was adopted as Iowa's official state flag in March 1921. The same year, Gebhardt received a copyright of her design, which she then presented as a gift to her native state. She was called, by Governor Harding, "Iowa's Betsy Ross." According to DAR presenters Iva E. Roorda and Lyle Bruere, Gebhardt designed the flag while she was state regent of the DAR.'Gephardt incorporated both symbolic and historical elements into her design. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Iowa was French territory, therefore the first flag to fly over Iowa was the French blue, white, and red. For Gephardt, white represented not only the virtue of purity, but also the unwritten page of Iowa's early history when Native Americans lived on the unbroken prairies of Iowa. Gephardt chose red for courage, but also believed the color to be a favorite of the state's Native American tribes, thus she chose it to represent the word "Iowa," which means "beautiful lands" in the native language. Blue represents the virtue of loyalty. Roorda and Bruere expand further on Gephardt's inspiration and meaning:'In commemoration of Iowa's one hundred years of statehood, the flag was featured on a postage stamp. During Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency, a flag was sent to the White House, where it held personal significance to the first lady, Mamie Eisenhower, whose birthplace was Iowa.