a memorial "asking suffrage and such amendments to the state laws of Ohio, as should place woman on a civil equality with
man."
In 1855 Mr. and Mrs. Severance removed to Newton, Mass. The women suffragists of New England were delighted to welcome so brilliant an advocate for the cause of suffrage as Mrs. Severance. She demurred at taking an active part in the work the "Woman's Rights Association" was planning to inaugurate. She preferred to render such service as she could as a member of the committee of the "Theodore Parker Fraternity Association," and to aid in securing a woman lecturer for the course. She earnestly joined her associates in requesting Mrs. Cady Stanton to deliver the course. Mrs. Stanton was, however, unable to accept the invitation of the committee. Mrs. Severance wrote to Mrs. Stanton long afterwards: "I was not able to resist the entreaties of the committee and the obligation that I felt myself under to make good your place, so far as in me lay." Hence she took upon herself the grave responsibility of giving the course of lectures the committee considered of vital importance to the cause of woman's rights. The initial lecture was the first ever delivered by a woman before a Lyceum Association in Boston. Mrs. Severance subsequently in writing to Mrs. Stanton tells of her emotions while delivering the lecture: "I will not tell you how prosy and dull I fear it was; but I know it was earnest and well considered, and that the beaming eyes of dear Mrs. Follen and Miss Elizabeth Peabody, glowing with interest before me from below the platform of Tremont Temple, kept me in heart all through."
Mrs. Severance is a tall, dignified woman, with a handsome face, ever lighted up by her effervescing spirits. Her countenance reflects the brilliancy of her rare intelligence, quickness of thought, and purity of mind and heart. She possesses
