Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biographical Sketch of Emma Maria Lore (Mother Mary Cecelia, OSU), 1868-1939
By Kate Turrell, undergraduate student, Binghamton University
Updated, March 2021 by Anne M. Boylan
Emma Maria Lore was born to Charles B. Lore and Rebecca Bates Lore on October 15, 1868, in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1887, Emma graduated from the prestigious Ogontz School outside Philadelphia, where she likely had studied music as she went on to become a musician, noted especially for her vocal talents and her skill on the piano and harp. Emma's elite education as well as her father's political career—he served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as Delaware's at-large representative, 1883-1887, and was the state Supreme Court Chief Justice from 1893 to 1909—indicate that she came from an influential, upper-class family.
As an adult, Emma continued to live with her parents. With her mother, she took trips to Europe to pursue musical training. She also joined Wilmington's New Century Club, founded in 1889, the pre-eminent white women's club in the city, where she counted among her associates a number of suffragists. She was a member of the club's executive committee in the 1890s and served a term as club president, 1910-1912. Her close relationship with her forward-thinking father helped influence their mutual activity in the suffrage movement. As Chief Justice, Charles B. Lore was an important member of the pro-suffrage movement in Delaware. Lore helped frame a petition to the Constitutional Convention in 1897 in favor of woman suffrage. Similarly, in 1897 after the legislature passed a bill requiring certain protective laws for working women in Wilmington, Lore appointed a female factory inspector.
While Charles B. Lore was a prominent political figure, Emma was an equally active participant and worked tirelessly for the suffrage movement. When the Wilmington Equal Suffrage Association was founded in 1895, Emma Lore became its secretary. Later, she served as treasurer for fourteen years. Beginning in 1896, she filled the same position within the state-wide Delaware Equal Suffrage Association. The members advocated for women's suffrage, collected petition signatures, sought to educate Delawareans about the cause of votes for women, and lobbied the state legislature for changes to women's legal status. As part of the latter endeavor, in 1910 the Wilmington group, the largest suffrage organization within the Delaware Association, appointed Emma to investigate how state laws pertaining to property ownership and guardianship over children affected women's rights. Utilizing her musical talents to promote the suffrage cause was another one of her contributions.
In 1913, when Rosalie Gardiner Jones's "suffrage pilgrims" made their trek from New York to Washington, D.C. to attend the March 3 national suffrage procession in advance of Woodrow Wilson's first inauguration, both the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association and its Wilmington affiliate welcomed them. The Evening Journal reported "Seldom have Wilmingtonians turned out to welcome a set of propagandists as they did yesterday when the Pilgrims for Woman Suffrage on their hike from New York to Washington arrived here."
Charles B. Lore died in March, 1911, Rebecca Bates Lore in March, 1917. Both were buried in the cemetery of Old St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church in Odessa, Delaware. Before their deaths, and with their "sympathetic approbation," Emma converted to Catholicism and was baptized on December 31, 1909 by Bishop John J. Monaghan in the "Bishop's Own Chapel" at Wilmington's Ursuline Academy. It is likely that her journey to a new religious affiliation began in 1908 when she joined the Academy's new music school as its vocal instructor. Along with the bishop, a former Mother Superior of the Ursulines served as her baptismal sponsor. Nine months after her mother's death, she entered the Ursuline Convent in Frostburg, Maryland in preparation for life as a Catholic sister. She chose "Cecelia" as her name in religious life in honor of the patron saint of music and musicians. The Order of St. Ursula (OSU) was a teaching order; Mother Cecelia taught music and directed the junior choir at St. Michael's Ursuline Convent and School in Frostburg before moving to the Ursuline Convent in Washington, D.C. toward the end of her life. She died there on December 29, 1939.
Sources:
Buhle, Mari Jo, and Paul Buhle. The Concise History of woman suffrage: selections from History of woman suffrage, ed. by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
"Delaware Treated to a Spectacle as Suffragettes Tramp Across State. March 28, 2015. Accessed October 27, 2017. https://delmarvahistory.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/delaware-treated-to-a-spectacle-as-suffragettes-tramp-across-state/.
"Family Search." FamilySearch.org. Accessed October 02, 2017. https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Arebeca~ %2Bsurname%3Alore~ %2Bresidence_place%3A%22wilmington Delaware%22~.
"History of the Supreme Court." The Supreme Court Until 1951 - History of the Delaware Supreme Court - Supreme Court - Delaware Courts - State of Delaware. Accessed October 02, 2017. http://courts.delaware.gov/supreme/history/history2.aspx.
"Penn State University Libraries." The Ogontz School 1850-1950 | Penn State University Libraries. January 02, 1970. Accessed October 02, 2017. https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/ogontz-school-1850-1950.
Reed, H. Clay, and Marion Bjornson Reed. Delaware, a history of the first state. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1947.
Additions to the bibliography:
Emma Lore's passport application, available on Ancestry.com, furnished her birth date.
"A New School of Music," Wilmington Every Evening, October 26, 1908, p. 8.
"Miss Lore Now a Roman Catholic," Wilmington Evening Journal, January 5, 1910, p. 1.
"Miss Lore Now an Ursuline Sister," Wilmington Evening Journal, August 27, 1918, p. 3.
"Mother Cecelia Dies in Capital; Former Emma Lore was Daughter of Late Chief Justice, Talented Musician," Wilmington Morning News, December 30, 1939, p. 2.
Gail Stanislow, "Domestic Feminism in Wilmington: The New Century Club, 1889-1917," Delaware History, 22:4 (1987): 158-185.