Spence, Mary E.

Mary Elizabeth Spence, (1865-1962), the only child of A.K. Spence and his wife, Catherine Thompson Mackie, was born in Michigan on July 4, 1865. Like the children of other white faculty members, Mary Spence was educated at Fisk. She obtained her B.A. in 1887 and her M.A. in 1893, before going on to Oberlin for her Ph. D. She returned to Fisk where she became a professor of classical languages and literature. Mary Spence died in Nashville, Tennessee in 1962. A.K. (Adam Knight) Spence (1831-1900) was born in Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1831. His father was a physician who, after of few years of practice in his native Scotland, decided to immigrate to America. The family settled near Ann Arbor, Michigan where the young Adam Spence helped run his family's farm after the death of his father. Several years after his father's death he finished high school at the preparatory department of Oberlin College. He went on to obtain his B.A. from Michigan University in 1858 and stayed on at Michigan to teach languages for 12 years. In 1870, Rev. Erastus Milo Cravath, a friend from his days at Oberlin, asked him to come to Fisk to add a College Department to the Normal School. He became the second principal of Fisk and through his efforts graduated the first College class of four members in 1875. Spence remained on the faculty at Fisk until his death on 24 April 1900. He was a participant in the culture of the University, helping to raise funds for the Jubilee Singers, writing and teaching poetry, as well as teaching Greek and Latin.