Introduction

Biography

Lucia was the daugh­ter of min­is­ter Ed­ward Mott Wool­ley and Lau­ra Smith.

During her ear­ly years, her fa­m­ily moved around cen­tral New York. They lived on her grand­par­ents’ re­tire­ment farm in Ca­ze­no­via for two years be­fore mov­ing to Munns­ville, where her fa­ther op­ened a lea­ther shop.

During the Pa­nic of 1837, her fa­ther suf­fered re­vers­es, so they moved back to her grand­par­ents’ Ca­ze­no­via farm. Then in 1841, her fa­ther was called to the Uni­ver­sal­ist min­is­try in Bridge­wa­ter, New York.

In 1847, her fa­ther moved to Mi­chi­gan, set­tling on a small farm about two miles west of Birm­ing­ham. Her father preached al­ter­nate­ly in Pon­ti­ac and Birm­ing­ham while Fi­del­ia took a teach­ing po­si­tion in a dis­trict school.

In De­cem­ber 1850, where Lu­cia mar­ried lo­cal ba­che­lor Hart­son Gil­lette. In the ear­ly 1860s, the Gil­lette fa­mi­ly moved to Ro­ches­ter, a town of 500 peo­ple about 25 miles north of De­troit.

Lucia was li­censed to preach in 1873, and was or­dained in 1877. In 1888, she be­came the first or­dained wo­man of any de­no­mi­na­tion set­tled in Ca­na­da (at the Uni­ver­sal­ist Church of Bloom­field, On­tar­io).

Works

• Memoir of Rev. Ed­ward Mott Wool­ley (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Ab­el Tomp­kins, 1855)
• Pebbles from the Shore (New Shar­on, Io­wa: H. J. Vail, 1879)
• Floating Leaves (Te­cum­seh, Mi­chi­gan: Her­ald Steam Print­ing House, 1881)
• Editorials and Oth­er Waifs (New York: 1899)