Brown, Nancy, 1870?-1948

Newspaper columnist. Annie L. Brown was born in Maine in 1869 or 1870. Attended Mount Holyoke College 1888-92. Married James Edward Leslie in 1904; in 1917 succeeded husband as arts columnist at the "Pittsburgh Dispatch". Launched advice column "Experience" at the "Detroit News" in 1919; used the pseudonym Nancy Brown. Had Peace Carillon built in her honor on Belle Isle (Detroit, Mich.).

Annie Louise Brown was born in Perry, Maine on December 11, 1870 (some sources say 1869) to Levi Prescott Brown, a Civil War veteran, and Annie R. Lincoln Brown. She attended high school in Middleborough, Massachusetts before entering Mount Holyoke College in 1888. After her graduation in 1892, she taught school in White River Junction, Vermont; Rockville, Connecticut and Mount Clemens, Michigan. In 1904 Brown married James Edward Leslie, a Sunday editor and drama critic for the "Pittsburgh Dispatch" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Leslie died in 1917. Brown succeeded her husband at the "Pittsburgh Dispatch" for a short time before beginning work at the "Detroit News" in Michigan. Brown launched her advice column, "Experience," on April 19, 1919. She wrote under the pseudonym Nancy Brown and as Mrs. J.E. Leslie. In 1929 Brown's readers (the "Experience Column Family") raised money for the reforestation of 560 acres in Michigan. In 1930 Brown hosted a party for her readers at the Detroit Institute of the Arts attended by more than 30,000 people. In 1934 Brown's column hosted its first annual sunrise service on Belle Isle, a park in the Detroit River. In the following years, the column readers raised money to build a monument to Brown on Belle Isle. The Nancy Brown Peace Carillon was dedicated in 1940. Brown retired in 1942 and died in Detroit on October 7, 1948 at age seventy-seven.