Adventurer. She was a mountain climber and one of a small band of women who blazed a trail for women in the Alps, as well as making a number of notable ascents. She also introduced her nephew, William Coolidge, who became an outstanding mountaineer, to alpine climbing when he was 15 years of age. Although born in New York she spent her early years in a Paris convent school and in 1864, with her sister Mrs Elisabeth Coolidge (who took her two children with her, leaving her husband behind in New York), moved permanently to Europe, and initially lived in Florence, Switzerland, and Germany. A year later, at the age of 40, she became a mountain climber, and made a name for herself in the late 1860s by making several important ascents in the Alps. She and William climbed together, for more than 10 seasons in all, and in Switzerland met the alpine guide Christian Almer who was adopted as their personal guide. In July 1868, the company had to give up an attempt to climb the Eiger due to dangerous ground conditions. Coolidge was greatly disappointed by the failure, and Almer offered him his dog Tschinghel as a gift. The dog later accompanied them on many of their subsequent adventures. In about 1869 the family moved to Oxford in England and in the same year she undertook her first attempt to climb the Matterhorn. Approaching from the Italian side she reached an altitude of just under 4,000 metres before being forced to turn back due to severe weather conditions. In 1870 she took her nephew and his dog Tschingel on an expedition to Dauphiné, and proceeded to make the first ascent of the central peak of the Meije, the first ascent of the Ailefroide on the other side of the group, and the third ascent of the Écrins. They then made the fifth ascent of the Dent Blanche, attempted the Weisshorn, climbed the Dom, and did some lesser climbs, before returning to England by a circuitous route necessitated by the Franco-Prussian war. In 1871 she decide to have another go at the Matterhorn, but Lucy Walker, her role model, who was already in Zermatt heard about this and quickly assembled a team that managed to make the summit shortly before her arrival. Despite this disappointment she waited until conditions on the mountain were just right and, on 5th September, became the first woman to traverse the mountain from Zermatt to Breuil (Cervinia) in Italy. During the following two weeks, she also became the first woman to ascend the Weisshorn (4,506 metres) and the Dent Blanche (4,357 metres). In 1876 she travelled again to Dauphiné in order to attempt the Meije but, instead, stayed in the Oberland in order to give more money to her nephew, to support his efforts in the range. She returned home to Dorking where she lived with her niece, have moved there earlier that year, and died in the December.