Harriette Lane Baggett was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1922. She graduated from Maryville University in 1942. While living in St. Louis, she was involved in the Catholic Worker movement and other lay ministries. In the late 1970s, she received her Master's Degree of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in Exile (Seminex) in St. Louis. In a 1998 interview, she said she earned the degree at the Lutheran school in order to "be ready for ordination when the rules change in Rome." In 1989, Baggett represented St. Louis Catholics for Choice as a cosigner on an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, supporting the latter. Baggett became involved with the Women's Ordination Conference in 1978. In 1984, Baggett was appointed a Core Commissioner of the WOC, requiring her to attend meetings around the country. She served as the Convenor for the working group for the 1985 national meeting, held in St. Louis, as well as the logistics liaison for the meeting. In 1988, she was among those honored as a "Prophetic Figure" in the Catholic feminist movement at the WOC's National Awards Dinner and Reunion. Baggett moved to Tallahassee, Florida in the 1990s.
From the guide to the Harriette Lane Baggett papers, 1978-1996, (University of Dayton)
