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Alice E. Heckler Peters

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"A Woman of the Century"

Alice E. Heckler Peters (March 13, 1845 - 1921) was an American social reformer, educator, and writer.[1][2]

Early life and education

Alice E. Heckler was born in Dayton, Ohio, March 13, 1845. Her father, Lewis Heckler (1822-1852), was an enterprising and successful man of business. From the time of his death, life was difficult for Alice. When she was fourteen, the family removed to Columbus, Ohio, and Alice undertook the task of providing financial support to the family. Inexperienced and without previous training, she found few occupations open to girls, but being desperate, she managed to find some work with the use of a sewing machine. In this way, she struggled for four years.[1]

Deprived of a textbook education, and there being no public library nearby, Alice often stayed up late, reading her Bible and books from the Sunday school. Biographies of the Wesleys and Fletchers made a deep impression on her.[1]

In middle age, through systematic study prescribed in the Chautauqua course, she graduated in 1887 with nine seals on her diploma.

Career

At the age of eighteen, she married Oscar G. Peters. Mr. Peters was then chief clerk in the Commissary Department. While her husband was stationed in Cleveland, Mrs. Peters took an active interest in the Sanitary Commission, making garments and scraping lint. During the 11 months that she was in Fort Leavenworth, she brought 150 children together for Sunday school. Returning to Columbus in 1866, Mr. Peters engaged in the grocery business for ten years. A daughter was born in 1868, but died in 1869. A year later, their only son was born.[1]

Mrs. Peters was involved in several women's social reform movements of her era. In 1873, Mrs. Peters had her sister-in-law babysit her child each day so that she could devote herself to the Women's Crusade for eleven weeks, speaking and praying in saloons and on the street. Through her writing, she contributed to furthering the Woman's Christian Temperance Union movement since its inception. Identifying herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church at the age of fifteenth, Peters became a charter member of both home and foreign missionary societies. She was active in the woman suffrage cause by delivering lectures on the subject and becoming a member of the national executive board. For seven years, she put effort into the work of the Woman's Relief Corps.[1]

Through journalistic writing and poems, Peters voiced the philanthropic and reform methods she advocated. Mr. Peters with his brother and a friend organized the Columbus Buggy Company, a large manufacturing concern, which gained an international reputation, and made it possible for Mr. and Mrs. Peters to further their philanthropic endeavors.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "PETERS, Mrs. Alice E. H.". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Charles Wells Moulton. p. 567. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. ^ Herringshaw, Thomas William (1914). Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States; Illustrated with Three Thousand Vignette Portraits ... American publishers' association. p. 438. Retrieved 5 July 2022. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
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