CHAPTER LXXIII.
MARY E. LEE, B. S.
Mrs. Mary E. Lee, nee Ashe, daughter of Simon S. and Adelia M. Ashe, was born in Mobile, Alabama, January 12, 1851.
Her parents were in good circumstances and her father was prominent in business and benevolence among
MARY E. LEE, B. S.
colored people. In 1860 he purchased a farm in Ohio, in the vicinity of Wilberforce University, where he settled and schooled his children.
The subject of this sketch graduated in the scientific department of said institution in 1873, with Misses Mary E. Davis, Julia A. Shorter, Hallie Q. Brown, and Messrs. Alexander D. Delaney and Samuel T. Mitchell, receiving the degree of B. S. She distinguished herself on several occasions by displaying a more than ordinary mind in essays and poems during her course of studies at the university, and was appointed and wrote a class ode, the first in the history of Wilberforce graduating classes. After graduation she taught in the public schools of Galveston, Texas, having previously taught two years in the city of Mobile, Alabama.
Miss Ashe was a successful teacher in both secular and Sunday-schools. On the 30th of December, 1873, she was married to Benjamin F. Lee, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Wilberforce University, afterward president of that institution, now Bishop of the A. M. E. Church. The severities of the life of the wife of a Methodist preacher, as well as that of a professor in a college, and the life of six children, have been great tests of the strong character of Mrs. Lee, but she has proven equal to the rigorous demands, and is rewarded by the pleasure of observing the steady development of an interesting family and being a college graduate wife of an African Methodist Bishop.
She has contributed several articles to the columns of the Christian Recorder and the A. M. E. Quarterly Review, and at present edits the "King's Daughters' Column" in Ringwood's Journal, a fashion paper, published by Mrs. Julia Ringwood Coston, Cleveland, Ohio.
Among the writings of Mrs. Lee may be mentioned "America," a poem that has been copied extensively. The following verses from the composition must take a creditable place in American verse:
America! her home is here!
She wants nor knows no other home;
No other lands, nor far nor near,
Can charm or tempt her thence to roam.
Her ancestors, like all the rest.
Came from the Eastern Hemisphere,
But she is native of the West;
She'll lend a hand to Africa,
And in her elevation aid.
But here in brave America,
Her home—her only home—is made;
No one has power to send her hence;
This home was planned by Providence.
From her "Voice of the Zephyrs," written while still in college and just in her teens, which, like her "America," is addressed to the African race, the following is quoted:
Hark! sweeping o'er spicy plains and streams
Of Africa's sunlit shores the balmy breath
Of zephyrs comes, all fragrant with glad,
A joyous song, like some Æolian harp,
Whose strings are dripping v»ith the sweets 1)lown
From the bosom of a thousand flowers rare.
In deepest silence, low I bow to catch
The blissful words wafted in these accents soft:
"Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God,
Her wilderness shall bloom into the land,
The lovely bridal land of Beulah, fair
As Queen of Sheba shall she be adorned.
Her head shall be filled with the wisdom of
King Solomon, her heart shall overflow
With beauty to all humanity;
Then nations shall look up to see her face."
Amen ! Blow on, ye winged zephyrs, blow!
Until you bring about the promised time.
In the city of Philadelphia Mrs. Lee is identified with the Ladies' Christian Union Association, the W. C. T. U., and the King's Daughters, also the Women's Mite Missionary Society. In the Afro-American Press Association "meeting of 1892 Mrs. Lee represented the Ringwood Journal and was elected vice-president of the organization.
Were all the facts mentioned, here wanting, the peculiar womanly spirit, the elevated and the positive personal character of Mrs. Mary E. Lee, would constitute her a worthy subject for the study of young Afro-American women. Every one who knows her bears witness to her sterling qualities and fine sense of proprieties. By the request of her friends she expects to publish a book of poems. This book will, no doubt, be looked for and read with great interest by our aspiring young women.