Elvira Ordon-Grabb

Sra Ordon-Grabb in her uniform as a member of the capital city (El Cabo) reserve. Although not technically in the military, she tended to wear the uniform during war as a way to show solidarity with the troops.

Elvira Ordon-Grabb (born 1811, Islandia, DS; died 1873, Jack Woss Creek, DS) was an Ardispherian politician who served as the president of the short-lived, breakaway Repúblicas Autónomas del Sur (RAS) during the Ardispherian Civil War, from 1855 until 1858.

Ordon-Grabb was born to a wealthy family of Ingerish descent which had settled in the village of Islandia, on the island called Isla Cerrada (Closed Isle) on the Ardisphere's south coast. She grew up fairly privileged and by her own account had no interest but to continue the family sea-trading business and marry her first love, a sailor and ship's mate some 10 years older than she who had the euphonious name of William Ward Walter. Her fiancé, however, was arrested for piracy in 1830 (and there is controversy to this day as to whether he was actually engaged in piracy or not, but recent research suggests that he was). Because of that, Ordon-Grabb was suddenly inspired to study law, and graduated in 1837 from the Colegio La Fourchet in Palmeras Grises, DS.

Subsequently, after fighting unsuccessfully for her husband's release from the notorious old Hueco Prison in Faro, she became involved with a group of activists and joined the Partido Autonomista. In 1847 she was elected to the comuna legislature for Comuna de Islas, and she served at the comuna seat of El Cabo until 1853.

With the increasing polarization of Ardispherian society and the rampant lawlessness of those years, leading up to president Aquiles Huidobro's auto-coup in 1855, she had resigned her position to return to her family estate in 1854. Almost immediately, however, things came to head, and she ran for and was elected as a representative to the Autonomist Union Congress which met first at Palmeras Grises and subsequently moved to El Cabo. Viewed as someone with a level head and some charisma, she was settled upon as a compromise candidate by the various factions in the Congress, and found herself catapulted into the presidency of the RAS. It was meant to be an "acting" position to be resolved by a subsequent election, but the course of events meant that there was never a formal ballot held. She retained her position throughout the war, but she had little real power, since the Military Governor for Departamento del Sur, Reina McQueen, and the marshall of the Autonomist Union Army, Guion Soc Guang, were the real powers-behind-the-throne.

Despite her lack of real power, she was quite notorious among the opposing Federalists, since her face and name appeared on all formal communications from the RAS. Consequently, when the victorious Federalists entered El Cabo in 1858, she was immediately arrested and placed on trial for "war crimes." She was actually standing before a firing squad on Government Square when word of President Ángel Keum's general amnesty reached the city.

The other result of the general amnesty, however, was the release of her husband (whom she had married in absentia because of his imprisonment), W.W. Walter. She wrote in her uncompleted memoir (documents now publicaly available at the Historical Library at Universidad Ortólica Ardesférica) that, in fact, as a result of this, she was perfectly content in the post-war period, despite their poverty (her wealthy family ended up forfeiting most of their assets). They lived on a small farm in Jack Woss Creek, just east of El Cabo, and raised cattle and sheep. She did, in fact, resume politics, and returned to the comuna legislature for Comuna de Islas from 1869 until her death from a madman's sword in 1873, when a disgruntled former soldier attacked her on the steps to Saint Valentine's Church.

She is remembered fondly in Departamento del Sur and among Ingerish-Ardispherians as a vaguely romantic figure, but her legacy is mixed. She failed to use her position to forcefully advocate for the moderation she claimed to stand for, and mostly seems to have been swept along by events beyond her ability to control or even comprehend. Recent evidence that her husband was, in fact, a pirate and that she was well-aware of that fact has meant that most historians consider her to have been somewhat of a hypocrite, as well.