Woman of the Century/Mary Jane Shelley

SHELLEY, Mrs. Mary Jane, temperance and missionary worker, born in Weedsport N. Y., 20th May, 1832. Her maiden name was Wright. Her father was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Weedsport. They removed to Illinois in 1843, where her father died in 1846. She received religious training under Bishop Peck, of New York, and was one of his special charges. She became the wife of Rev. L. Shelley, whose ancestral home was in Shelley Islands, eastern Pennsylvania. MARY JANE SHELLEY. They removed to Iowa, where her influence for good was felt in her husband's work. Though naturally timid, retiring and adverse to publicity, she responded willingly when Bishop Peck called her forth to special work in the interest of reform and religious affairs. With spirit and determination she began her public work at the age of forty-seven. She was for five years vice-president of the first Nebraska district for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, resigning to accept new duties in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, of which body she was conference secretary for Nebraska. She traveled over the State, often in her carriage for many hundred miles, organizing auxiliaries, encouraging workers everywhere, and often supplying pulpits. From 1884 to 1891 she was treasurer of the Topeka branch, but resigned because of failing health and eyesight She is thorough, systematic and business-like in her work, to which she has given herself with energy and unselfish devotion for fourteen years. Her home is in Weymore, Neb.