Daughter of Benjamin Bartholomew and his wife, Susannah Lucas Bartholomew, she was born in Harpersfield, Ashtabula Co. Ohio, in the old Connecticut Reserve. She was the 10th of 12 children. She was named for the wife of her elder brother, Riley- --Frances A. Watkins Bartholomew.
Young Fannie married in Harpersfield in 1852 with a neighbor's son, Robert Hopkins Phillips. His family had been very active in northeast Ohio's Underground Railroad-moving runaway slaves northwards to Canada. He too was an ardent Abolitionist.
"Fannie" moved West with her husband, her parents and siblings as the new lands opened for settlement on the Wisconsin and Minnesota frontiers. They came in a monthlong journey from Ohio by barge, paddleboat, oxcart--finally arriving in St Anthony Minnesota in 1860 , after Minnesota statehood. Fannie worked with her husband to set up their Mower Co. farmstead; unfortunately they were forced to abandon this site in wake of the 1862 Indian threats culminating in the Sioux Uprising of August 1862. At that time the family moved to Northfield to live with her elderly parents. Northfield was a established town and provided security for the duration of the Civil War. Fannie's brothers and husband served during the long Civil War, leaving the family and farm work to the family's elderly and women members. Able men were absent from Minnesota towns during the Civil War due to heavy recruitment into local regiments. Elderly, women and children primarily populated the Minnesota frontier farms during this time causing hardships and heightened concerns for security in the aftermath of the Indian dangers.
After the war, Fannie and her husband remained in Northfield; they pursued some farming there and also invested in the development of the milling industry. She died in Northfield and is buried with her husband, parents and her brother (who died a soldier in the Indian Uprising at Ft. Ridgely)