National Society Daughters of the American Revolution

Nancy Hunter Chapter

Cape Girardeau, Missouri

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The Betsy Ross of Missouri--Marie Elizabeth Watkins Oliver

In 1908, nearly a century after Missouri had become a state, the Missouri State Society Daughters of the American Revolution formed a committee to investigate designing a state flag. Several flag designs were presented to the state by Missouri residents, but it was a flag created by Marie Elizabeth Watkins Oliver (1854-1944) which was eventually chosen as the official Missouri State Flag. At the time, Mrs. Oliver was the Missouri State Society DAR Vice Regent, and she commissioned Miss Mary Kochtitzky, a professor of fine arts at Southeast Missouri State University (then Southeast Missouri State Teachers College) to do the artwork for the flag.

Mrs. Oliver became the Missouri State Regent in 1910. The Oliver flag was adopted by the Missouri Legislature and on March 22, 1913, Governor Elliot Major signed the bill into law. On March 23, 1936, the Nancy Hunter Chapter members attended a tea at the home of Mrs. Oliver to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the adoption of the Missouri State Flag. Mrs. Oliver and Miss Mary Kochtitzky told interesting facts about how the design of the flag evolved. Shared with the Nancy Hunter Chapter was the fact that Otto Kochtitzky, Mary Kochtitzky's father, a civil engineer known as the "father of the drainage system" in southeast Missouri, worked out the flag measurements mathematically.

His mother's original flag was given to the State of Missouri in 1961 by Allen Oliver. It was on public display for a number of years and when it began to deteriorate, the flag was put into a storage vault. In 1988, to celebrate the Missouri State Flag's 75th birthday, the Missouri elementary school children helped to raise funds to have the flag restored. It is now on display in the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City in the James C. Kirkpatrick State Information Center.