Inside cover of Elizabeth Parker McCollester's diary, 1878
The papers represent several generations of the Parker- McCollestr family in New Hampshire. Lovisa Southgate of Bridgewater, VT, was the daughter of a textile mill owner who taught for several years before her marriage to Hosea W. Parker of Lempster, NH, the son of a subsistence farmer who went on to be a lawyer active as a Democrat in NH state politics, serving two terms in Congress. Their daughter was Lizzie Southgate Parker McCollester born in Claremont, NH 17 May 1865. She graduated from Stevens High School in Claremont in 1884 and received her A.B. from Smith College in 1888. The following year she married Lee McCollester, a Universalist minister and the young couple moved to Detroit where McCollester served as pastor in that city's Universalist Church. In Detroit Lizzie McCollester was a founder of the Twentieth Century Club; helped organize in the Michigan Smith College Club; and was a charter member of the Fine Arts Society of Detroit. In 1912 Lee McCollester became Dean of the Crane Theology School at Tufts College and the family then moved to Medford, Massachusetts. Lizzie McCollester continued to be active in her new home where her organizational skills were put to use in many settings including the Boston Smith College Club and the Medford Shakespeare Club. Lizzie Parker McCollester gave birth to three children, one of whom died in infancy. She died in Medford, Massachusetts of cancer 1 April 1928. Other individuals represented include Catherine McCollester Gallaher (Smith 1914), her husband Hugh Gallaher, and Elizabeth Gallaher von Klemperer (Smith 1944).
From the guide to the Parker McCollester Family Papers MS 231., 1764-2009, (Sophia Smith Collection)
