Lillian M. N. Stevens

Lillian M. N. Stevens was an American temperance worker and social reformer, born at Dover, Maine. She helped launch the Maine chapter of the Womans Christian Temperance Union, served as its president, and was elected president of the National Womans Christian Temperance Union after the death of Frances Willard.

Lillian, known as Marilla in childhood, was the fourth of six children born in Dover, Maine to Nathaniel Ames and Nancy Fowler Parsons Ames. Two of her older siblings died in infancy, leaving one boy and three girls. As a child, she loved the woods, quiet haunts, a free life and plenty of books. The four siblings spent many happy hours on the hillside and in the woods where she delighted to be. . . . he came to love the stately pines better than any flower, or shrub, or other tree. Her father was a teacher, and both parents shared early New England ancestry. She studied, first, at the Foxcroft Academy, founded by the state in 1823 for the promotion of literature, science, morality and piety. Her mother died when Lillian was 14. In January 1859 her father married Frances L. Bragdon, a resident of Cape Elizabeth. Lillians new home provided easy access to the Westbrook Seminary, which she entered for the spring term two months later.

Source: Wikipedia