Lavantia Densmore Douglass (March 1, 1827 – May 27,
1899) was an American social reformer associated with the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Failing eye-sight caused by cataracts
was only partially restored after surgery, and affected her efforts in
the temperance cause.
Lavantia Densmore was born in Rochester, New York, March 1, 1827. She
was one of seven children. Her parents, Joel and Sophia Densmore, were
poor. When Douglass was about nine years old, her parents removed to a
farm at Crawford County, Pennsylvania. Appreciating their own lack of
education, both parents strove to give their children the best
educational opportunities possible, The sole luxury of their home was
literature. They took the Democratic Review, almost the only magazine
then published in the United States, and such papers as the National Era
and the Boston Investigator. Her siblings included brothers, Emmet and
William, and a sister, Elizabeth.
On October 4, 1853, she married Joshua Douglass (or Douglas), a young
lawyer of Meadville, Pennsylvania, where she lived for the rest of her
life until near the time of her death. Their children were: Marion, born
February 7, 1855; Ellen, born 1858; Robert, born 1861, died 1862; Mabel,
born 1864; and Gertrude, born 1866.
In Meadville, her life was devoted to caring for her household and
rearing her children, as well as participating in the literary and
charitable societies. In 1872, she made a visit to Europe. She arrived
home from Europe on December 23, 1873, the day of the great Woman's
Temperance Crusade, launched in Hillsboro, Ohio. Meadville was
aroused by the great outpouring, and the following March, a mass meeting
was called and a temperance organization effected. Very early on,
Douglass not only identified herself with the movement, and was an
active worker in the cause, but also became a member of the WCTU. For
many years, she served as president of the Meadville Union. Her
enthusiasm and labors made her name in her own community a synonym for
temperance.
In religion, Douglass and her husband were members of the Unitarian
Congregation of Meadville.
For a few years, Douglass retired from active efforts in the temperance
cause, owing to failing eye-sight. Cataracts formed on both of her eyes,
and though they were removed, she only regained partial vision.
In the winter of 1898-99, she had had a surgical operation for a
malignant growth and had recovered almost completely from its effects,
when a little more than a week before her death, she broke one of her
legs. She died in Manhattan, on Saturday, May 27, 1899 at the residence
of her daughter, Mrs. John Crawford Burns, Manhattan, as a result of
shock after the fracture. She was buried in the family lot at Greendale
Cemetery in Meadville.
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