Inaugural Impressions
Lula Celia (Lou) Strang Trapp (1878–1962)
Born in Larned, Kansas, on July 16, 1878, Lula Celia (Lou) Strang was the daughter of Jeremiah C. (Jerry) and Mary Elizabeth Lyon Strang. Lula, always known as Lou, attended All Hallows Academy, a Catholic boarding school in Wichita, Kansas. Newspapers of the time reported Lou was a talented hostess who threw or attended numerous parties. She was also intelligent, accepting a deputyship under her father upon his appointment as a district judge. The Strangs moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, in 1893.
Lou married Martin Edwin Trapp in November 1907 in front of relatives and friends at her father’s home in Guthrie. Martin was already busy carving a public role for himself, being elected the first auditor of Oklahoma. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1914 and was reelected to that position in 1918 and 1922. He took office as governor in November 1923 following the impeachment and conviction of Governor Jack Walton.
Lou was not active publicly in politics and rarely traveled to campaign events with her husband. Although she was not an advocate of women’s suffrage, she insisted it was her duty to vote after Oklahoma ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. She dedicated her life to caring for her husband and their one son, Martin Edwin Trapp Jr. In 1926, Martin announced his intention to run for governor, only for the state Supreme Court to rule that he had already served a term for governor and could not succeed himself.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Martin returned to the private sector and Lou remained a well-connected social hostess from their home in Oklahoma City. Martin died of complications following surgery on July 26, 1951. Lou died on February 16, 1962, at the age of 83. She is buried in Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
Lou Strang Trapp, 1936
(2012.201.B1293.0060, Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection, OHS)
