Mary Leggett Cooke

Rev.
Mary Leggett Cooke
19th-century B&W portrait photo of a woman with her hair in an up-do, wearing a dark, high-collared blouse.
Portrait photo from A Woman of the Century
Personal life
Born
Mary Lydia Leggett

April 23, 1852
Cayuga County, New York
DiedAugust 17, 1938(1938-08-17) (aged 86)
Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1923; died 1923)​
Parent
  • Rev. William Leggett (father)
Alma materHarvard Divinity School
Known forMember of the Iowa Sisterhood
Religious life
DenominationUnitarian
ProfessionMinister
Ordination1887

Mary Leggett Cooke (1852–1938) was an American Unitarian minister.[1][2][3] She was a member of the Iowa Sisterhood,[4] a group of women ministers who organized eighteen Unitarian societies in several Midwestern states in the late 19th century and early 20th century.[5]

Early life and education

Mary Lydia Leggett was born in Cayuga County, New York,[a] April 23, 1852. She was the daughter of Rev. William Leggett and Frelove Frost Leggett. From earliest childhood, she was a worshipper of the religion of nature.[2]

She was educated at Monticello Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois,[2] and was the first woman to graduate from Harvard Divinity School.[6] She continued her studies while traveling to Egypt, Greece, and Italy.[3]

Career

Cooke was ordained to the Unitarian ministry in 1887, in Kansas City, Missouri. Rev. Charles Gordon Ames of Philadelphia preached her ordination sermon.[2]

She built and dedicated a church in Beatrice, Nebraska, of which she was minister until 1891, when she went to Boston, Massachusetts, and became minister of a seaboard parish 36 miles (58 km) from that city. Her church in Green Harbor, Massachusetts, was founded by the granddaughter of Daniel Webster, whose summer home was in that hamlet. Leggett's study contained the office table on which Webster penned his speeches.[2] In that state, she also served at Dighton. After that, she was at Fort Collins, Colorado, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and Revere, Massachusetts.[3]

Cooke was also affiliated with the social settlements movement and women's suffrage.[3]

Personal life

On April 23, 1923, she married Rev. George Willis Cooke,[6] who died a week after their wedding, at her home in Revere, Massachusetts.[7]

Mary Leggett Cooke died in Brookline, Massachusetts, on August 17, 1938.[8]

Notes

  1. ^ Records differ on whether Cooke was born in Sempronius, Cayuga County, New York or Moravia, Cayuga County, New York.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ UUDB Admin (28 October 2000). "Cooke, George Willis". Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "LEGGETT, Miss Mary Lydia". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Charles Wells Moulton. p. 456. Retrieved 24 April 2024. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. ^ a b c d e Leonard, John W. (1914). "LEGGETT, Mary Lydia". Woman's Who's who of America. American Commonwealth Company. p. 485. Retrieved 25 April 2024. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  4. ^ "Remembering the Iowa Sisterhood". UUA.org. 2011-10-26. Retrieved 2018-11-08.
  5. ^ Hepokoski, Carol. "Women Ministers in the Prairie Star District". Bring, O Past, Your Honor. The Ministers Association of the Prairie Star District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Retrieved April 17, 2011.
  6. ^ a b Wayne, Tiffany K. (14 May 2014). Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-0916-9. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  7. ^ Hannan, Caryn (1 January 1998). Michigan Biographical Dictionary. State History Publications. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-878592-95-8. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  8. ^ "Woman Minister, Once Iowan, Dies". Des Moines Tribune. 17 August 1938. p. 16. Retrieved 25 April 2024 – via Newspapers.com.