Gertrude Colles was born in Morristown.  She was a resident of Morristown for most of her youth.  Her grandfather was James Colles, a commission merchant who owned a farm around Colles Avenue.  Colles was also the great niece of Christopher Colles , who designed the old Erie Canal of New York State and the great niece of Abraham Colles, who was coined the “Father of Surgery” and the “Colles fracture” was named after him.

Colles studied painting at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Julian Delecluse and Cabrossie schools in Paris.  She had her own portrait studio in New York City from 1894 – 1921.  This was an unusual achievement for a woman at this time.  Gertrude Colles was well known for her miniature portrait paintings.  She painted from regular sittings, descriptions, and from photographs.  Colles also created life size oil portraits such as the bust of Mrs. Fredrick van Buren.

The daughter of Julia Keese Nelson Colles, a respected author, who wrote “Historic Morristown” and “Authors and Writers Connected with Morristown” and a woman who adamantly believed women should have the right to vote, Gertrude Colles became actively involved in the suffrage movement in the early 1900s.  “The polite way in which men listened to her opinions and then brushed her off” also motivated her affiliation with the movement.

Colles joined a group of suffragists called the American Suffragettes, who spoke at various locations around New York City, distributed literature, and sold yellow buttons with the words “Votes for Women.”  The group’s primary speaker was Mary Coleman, a criminal courts lawyer.  The appearance of a woman speaking on a platform in public was a controversial act.  Colles recalled the cheers and boos the open air meetings inspired, “on one occasion we were followed by a howling mob while a secret service man, swinging a blackjack, led us to safety.”

Gertrude Colles voted every year after suffrage was granted in 1920 except the time she was in the hospital.  Colles died at the age of 88 on September 24, 1957 at St. Clare’s Hospital after a long illness.