Woman of the Century/Lillian Hollister

HOLLISTER, Mrs. Lillian, temperance and church worker, born in Oakland county, Mich., 8th September, 1853. Her father, Phineas Bates, was a well-to-do farmer, a native of New York. He was a deacon in the Baptist Church and an earnest anti-slavery man. Lillian was one of a family of six children. She was well educated, and at the age of fifteen was a normal and high school graduate. She at once began to teach. In 1872 she became the wife of Daniel W. Hollister. They lived on a farm until 1881. Mrs. Hollister was active in Sunday-school work and served as superintendent. In 1881 she moved to Detroit. Mich., her present home. There she continued her musical and literary studies. She associated herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In church work she took a leading part, acting as president of the Ladies' Aid Society of the Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church and as conference secretary of LILLIAN HOLLISTER. the Woman's Home Missionary Society. She is a member of the Sunday-school normal class of the Chautauqua Circle, the Deaconess Board and various philanthropic and charity societies. In the Woman's Christian Temperance Union she was for two years secretary, then vice-president and then president, in which office, for six successive years, she has received the compliment of a unanimous re-election each year. 'Recognizing the commanding influence of woman in advancing the interests of the church and of all humanitarian institutions, she has been slow to favor woman in politics, but has of late become a convert to the principle of the woman suffrage movement. In addition to her extensive local work in Detroit, she holds the office of State superintendent of the Young Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Her trained executive talents are manifested throughout the State in organizing new unions and in the prosperity they show under her care. As a parliamentarian, there are but few presiding officers who excel her in maintaining harmony and expediting the business of meetings. With her, life is too short to be spent in sheer idleness, and she is therefore as much the student to-day as when a school-girl. She has one son, about seventeen years old.