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140 & ••••••••• 59 • SBA to Lydia Avery Coonley Ward 1 Rochester, N.Y., May 9 1897. My Dear Mrs Coonley I learn from Mrs Greenleaf 2 that you are coming to Mrs Gannetts 3 this week— My sister & I want to put in our claim for a visit from you and nyourp newly chosen one—while you are in the city— I shall go to see you as soon as I know of your arrival—for I do want to see you once more—and learn to adjust myself to your added name & added friendship— I remember my dear friend Antoinette Brown 4 —when I met her after her marriage to Sam’l Blackwell—said to me—“Susan while I love you just as well as I did before, I feel the need of you far less!!” This I presume is ever true with old friendships— But come and let us see—we are philosophers enough to accept whatever comes— so fix the time—and spend at least a day with us— I want you to sit in judgement on the few chapters of my life that Mrs Harper has made the first writing of— So withnlovep to your dear mother 5 & each & all of your precious girls & boys—I am as ever Lovingly yours U Susan B. Anthony Y ALS, on NAWSA letterhead, SBA Collection, NR. 1. Lydia Arms Avery Coonley Ward (1845–1924),who hosted SBA at her house in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition of 1893,was then the wealthy widow of John Clark Coonley and a leader in cultural and reform activities in the city.She and her mother,Susan Look Avery,spent summers in Wyoming,New York,where they became acquainted with SBA through their suffrage activism. (ANB; Women Building Chicago; Waldo R. Browne, Chronicles of an American Home, Hillside (Wyoming, New York) and Its Family: 1858–1928 [New York, 1930].) On 18 March 1897, Lydia Coonley married Henry Augustus Ward (1834–1906) of Rochester, a scientist and traveler whose courtship of Coonley began in 1893. Their marriage took place at her house in Chicago, but SBA here addresses them at the house in Wyoming County. SBA did not easily accept this marriage; after meeting Ward on May 14, she wrote in her diary, “The Alliance doesnt seem any better to me.” (New York Times, 19 March 1897, 5 July 1906; Roswell Ward, Henry A. Ward: Museum Builder to America [Rochester,1948],255–56,264; SBA diary,7 March,14–15 May 1897, Film, 36:247ff.) 2. Jean Frances Brooks Greenleaf (1831–1918), the wife of Rochester business9 may 1897 ^ 141 man and congressman Halbert S. Greenleaf and a friend of SBA, was president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 to 1896. After her husband suffered a stroke, she withdrew from many of her leadership positions to take care of him. (American Women; John Devoy, Rochester and the Post Express. A History of the City of Rochester from the Earliest Times: The Pioneers and Their Predecessors, Frontier Life in Genesee Country, Biographical Sketches [Rochester, 1895],162; “Jean Brooks Greenleaf,”Rochester Regional Library Council website, Western New York Suffragists: Winning the Vote. See also Papers 5.) 3. Mary Thorn Lewis Gannett (1854–1952), wife of William Gannett, was one of Rochester’s leading reformers and organizers, joining the Political Equality Club and the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union and also founding new groups, like the Unitarian church’s Woman’s Alliance. (Pease, “Gannetts of Rochester ,” 1–24; New York Times, 27 October 1952.) 4. Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell (1825–1921) was the first American woman to be ordained a minister. While living in Henrietta, New York, before her marriage, she worked closely with ECS and SBA in the movement for woman’s rights. She married Samuel Charles Blackwell (1823–1901), a brother of Henry Blackwell and a businessman in New York and New Jersey, in 1856. (NAW; ANB. See also Papers 1–4.) 5. Susan Howes Look Avery (1817–1915), who lived in Louisville, Kentucky, when she was not in Wyoming County,was the widow of Benjamin Franklin Avery, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of plows. In New York, Avery helped found the Warsaw Political Equality Club in 1891 and presided over countywide meetings of other local clubs for many years. In Louisville, she founded the Woman’s Club, worked with Laura Clay on reform of married women’s property laws, and donated money for the National-American’s work in southern states. (WWW1...

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