Mary H. Graves: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox writer

| name = Mary H. Graves

| image = MARY H. GRAVES.jpg

| birth_name = Mary Hannah Graves

| birth_date = September 12, 1839

| death_place = [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S.

| resting_place = Riverside Cemetery in North Reading, Massachusetts, U.S.

| language = English

| alma_mater = [[Abbot Academy]], [[Salem State University|State Normal School at Salem]]

| notableworks = ''[[Sketches of representative women of New England]]''

}}

 

She aspired to the ministry, and studied under the guidance of Rev. [[Olympia Brown]] of the [[Universalist Church of America|Universalist]] faith. She was ordained by [[James Freeman Clarke]] as a Unitarian minister, and passed years in several pastorates, the earliest of which was at [[Mansfield, Massachusetts]]. She preached with acceptance in various places in the west, in [[Peoria, Illinois]], [[Earlville, Illinois]], and [[Manitou, Colorado]]. She also gave to friends valuable assistance in the education of their children. As the years wore on, her strength proved unequal to the arduous duties of the ministry, and her time was filled with literary work. She contributed occasionally to the pages of ''[[The Christian Register]]'', and other periodicals. With Julia Ward Howe, Graves edited a volume on the eminent women of New England, ''[[Sketches of representative women of New England]]'' (1904).{{sfn|American Unitarian Association|1908|p=16}}{{sfn|H. W. Wilson Company|1906|p=864}}

 

Mary Hannah Graves was born in [[North Reading, Massachusetts]], September 12, 1839. Her parents were Eben Graves, a farmer,{{sfn|American Unitarian Association|1908|p=16}} and Hannah M. (Campbell) Graves.{{sfn|Eaton|Eaton|1896|p=199}} Her parents had six children who grew to maturity. The mother, who died May 21, 188i, was a sister of James S. and John B. Campbell. The father, Eben Graves, a lifelong resident of North Reading, was a farmer and market—man. Kind-hearted and a good friend to the poor, he was a man of few words. When his sudden death from [[apoplexy]], January 2, 1872, was announced, that evening at the Farmers’ Club a spontaneous tribute was paid to his memory in the general utterance, "He was an honest man.” His father was Capt. Daniel Graves, a young soldier in the [[American Revolution|Revolution]]. The parish records show that the captain was a man of more than ordinary influence in the old North Precinct. He served two terms in the State legislature and in various town offices.{{sfn|Eaton|Eaton|1896|p=199}}

 

 

==Career==

Graves taught in the public schools of her own town and in the Bowditch School, South Danvers, now [[Peabody, Massachusetts]].{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=334}} As a teacher she was thirty years ahead of her time. Her generous teaching included cultivating the imagination and the finer qualities of the mind through drawing, and reading, and botany. But this went unappreciated as parsing, ciphering, and the memorizing of map questions were the favored approached of the public schools in that. Failing to garner appreciation by school examiners, she left the teaching profession.{{sfn|Eaton|Eaton|1896|p=199}}

 

 

 

 

 

Graves died December 5, 1908,{{sfn|Graves|1985|p=97}} in Boston, and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in North Reading.

 

 

===Attribution===

 

===Bibliography===

 

==External links==

* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Mary H. Graves}}

 

[[Category:1839 births]]

[[Category:1908 deaths]]

[[Category:19th-century Christian universalists]]

[[Category:20th-century Christian universalists]]

[[Category:19th-century American writers]]

[[Category:19th-century American women writers]]

[[Category:20th-century American writers]]

[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]