Mother of the famous author Stephen Crane.
Woman of the Century/Mary Helen Peck Crane

CRANE, Mrs. Mary Helen Peck, church and temperance worker, born in Wilkes barre, Pa., 10th April, 1S27. She was the only daughter of Rev. George Peck, D. D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the well-known author and editor. She became the wife of the late Rev. Jonathan Townsley Crane, D. D., when twenty years of age, and was the mother of fourteen children. She was a devoted wife and mother and was energetic in assisting her husband in his work in the church and among the poor. Mrs. Crane was an ardent temperance worker and, as her children grew up, she devoted much time to the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. Crane delivered addresses on several occasions before the members of the New Jersey Legislature, when temperance bills were pending, and she greatly aided the men who were lighting to secure good laws. As the pioneer of press-work by women at the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting, she did valuable work, and her reports for the New York "Tribune" and the New York Associated Press, during the last ten years of the great religious and temperance gatherings at the noted Mecca of the Methodists, are models of their kind. For about ten years she was the State superintendent of press for New Jersey of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She wrote several leaflets that were of great value to the press-workers of the local unions. For over a half-century Mrs. Crane was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She led the life of a sincere Christian and died 7th December, 1891, after a short illness contracted at the National convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Boston. One daughter and six sons survive her.

Contributor: Elisa Rolle (48982101)