LUCY BRIGHAM (HOSMER) FISHER was born in Fitchburg, Mass., March 24, 1834, the eldest of five children of Silas and Delia (Gibbs) Hosmer. Her early life was in no way different from the average of the time. Neither wealth nor poverty was the lot of the great body of the people, and the opportunities for development and progress were fairly open to every one. She early manifested traits of character—among them a strong sense of justice and a conscientious regard for truth—which have since given her power and influence.
When sixteen years old, Lucy Brigham Hosmer, at the solicitation of the school committee, became a teacher in the public schools of her native town. In this capacity she served with marked success for the nine years following. On February 12, 1860, she was married to Dr. Jabez Fisher, well known in the horticultural world. His two motherless children needed the fostering care which she could give, and most devotedly did she fulfil all the requirements of the situation.
Having entered the Sunday-school at the age of three years, and remained a constant pupil until she was twenty, she then began her work as teacher in the Sunday-school of the First Universalist Church by assuming charge of the primary class of little girls. The gradual increase of opportunity which followed her successful early experience was of the most satisfactory nature. From that time to the present, a period of over fifty years, she has been a constant and important factor in the lives and characters of many hundreds of children. The primary department has constantly grown under her management, and, as now constituted, embraces girls and boys from three to ten years of age; the numbers ranging from one hundred to one hundred and thirty. In many cases she has now in charge children whose father or mother or both parents were formerly under her instruction and are now teachers in some department of the school. On each returning Sunday she has the inspiring satisfaction of looking the greater part of these children in the face, a most beautiful sight; and through her constant watchfulness and well-directed efforts she controls, directs, and draws out their young minds in the direction of truth, justice, and loveliness of character. She restrains all that is wrong, and encourages all that is good and lovely. It is done so easily and naturally that the looker-on is charmed by the smoothness with which everything proceeds, and is not aware that any special effort is being used to this end. The time for closing the exercises comes all too soon, and many linger to say pleasant words. She wins the love of most children at once, and always retains the lasting respect of even those who are prone to rebel against her requirements, when they learn that such are exercised not by an autocrat, but by a friend whose only consideration is for their best development in character, and who will never consent to see them go wrong. One of her pastors thus emphasizes some of her characteristics: —
"I am reminded, as I think of her, of Mrs. Fishers perfect fairness of mind and firmness in the maintenance of what she deems to be right. She has no compromise with error or evil. She is always earnest in her convictions and steadfast in her loyalty to duty. She never turns aside for secondary considerations, and never surrenders. She sees the right clearly, and devotes herself with entire consecration and self-sacrifice, as evidenced in her long service in the church and in her unswerving fidelity to her home. She is an optimist. The greatness of her trust inspires and strengthens her. She fills a large place in the connn unity through her silent influence, and with all her usefulness and power her life is crowned with rare modesty."
Her tireless and constant thought is for the welfare of those with whom she is associated, even to the neglect of her own best physical welfare. The virtue of altruism, much alluded to in recent years, Mrs. Fisher has been practising all her life. She has often said that her first thought, duty, and effort were due to her home; her second, to her church and Sunday-school; and, if she had any reserve strength, it was at the service of any good cause that needed it the most. In addition to more pressing duties she has found time to advocate and labor for the enfranchisement of woman, giving her opportunity to rise to her highest level.
