From collection Member List
Founder Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gorham Hoag was born in 1857 in Waterville, Maine.
As a teenager, Lizzie attended Waterville Classical Institute along with fellow Founders Ida M. Fuller and Louise H. Coburn. The three young women were the only members of the “Ladies College Preparatory Course” at the Institute in those years.
After passing the college examinations, Lizzie and her classmates entered Colby College together in September 1873 where they were joined by a fourth female classmate - Frances E. Mann - in a first-year class of 25 students.
Tragically, Lizzie’s young life was cut short when she contracted Tuberculosis (then known as consumption) during her sophomore year. She had always been a delicate, slender girl and in the winter of her sophomore year she began to grow paler and more frail every day. Her mother took Lizzie south to Portland, Maine in the hopes the doctors there could cure her, but she died on June 14, 1875 at the age of 18. She was brought back to Waterville for burial and is interned in the Pine Grove Cemetery. It is a testament to her character and personality that when she was laid to rest the entire sophomore class of Colby College followed their beloved classmate to her final resting place and voted to wear crepe (a sign of mourning at the time) for the remainder of the college term in her honor.
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