Lucy Jerome

Written by Anna Mae Maday, Manager, Eddy Historical & Genealogy Collection of Hoyt Public Library in Saginaw, Michigan
September 2000


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Lucy Jerome was one of the founding members of the Saginaw Reading Club. At a meeting held October 4, 1885, she was chosen temporary chairperson of a group considering the establishment of a reading club. She was also on the committee to study a proposed constitution and by-laws for the club. The constitution was adopted on November 2, 1885. After the Saginaw Reading Club was officially organized, Mrs. Jerome was chosen to be the club's first president. An historian of the club said that Lucy Jerome was a "woman of great culture." Mrs. Jerome was also a good presiding officer with excellent knowledge of parliamentary law. It was said she was gifted with a spontaneous wit that took people by surprise. In 1889 she served on the program committee of the reading club.

Lucy Amelia Peck was born in 1834 in Pontiac, the daughter of Edward W. Peck and Lucy Frost Peck. Her mother died when she was six and her father remarried. Her father was a businessman who was active in government when Michigan was being considered for statehood. In 1859 she married David Howell Jerome, who became Michigan's governor in 1881. Lucy and David Jerome had three children, but only one survived to adulthood. The surviving son, Thomas Spencer Jerome, became a lawyer in Detroit. The Jerome family was related through marriage to Dr. Lyman W. Bliss, the brother of another Michigan governor, Aaron T. Bliss. These two families were also associated in various Saginaw lumbering enterprises. Unfortunately, nothing is known to have been written about Lucy's reign as first lady of Michigan. But if the reports of her culture and personality were accurate, she would have been comfortable in the role and would have graced Michigan's capital by her presence.

David H. Jerome died at Watkins Glen, New York, on April 23, 1896, at the age of sixty-seven. After her husband's death Lucy Jerome went to live with her son at Detroit. She died there eleven months later on March 31, 1897, at the age of sixty- three. They are both buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Pontiac.

Suggested Reading
  • Chapman, Charles C.History of Saginaw County. 1881.
  • History of the Saginaw Reading Club 1885-1935.
  • Mills, James Cooke. History of Saginaw County. 1918.
  • Saginaw Courier Herald. April 1, 1897.
  • Weddon, Willah. First Ladies of Michigan.

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Keywords: Saginaw Reading Club--Presidents  ; Bliss, Lyman W.  ; Jerome, Lucy Amelia Peck  ; Women--Societies and clubs  ; Jerome, David H., 1827-1896  ; 
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