Hannah Borden Palmer

Hannah Borden Palmer (October 8, 1843 - January 26, 1940) was a temperance reformer.

Early life and family

Hannah Chambers Borden was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, on October 8, 1843. Her father was a Presbyterian clergyman, Edmund Woodmansee Borden (1822-1893). On her mother's side, Margaret Hopper (1823-1901), she descended from Andries Willemszen Hoppe (1622-1658), who was among the first settlers of Manhattan Island. She was the oldest of a family of eight children, the four surviving siblings were: Almira C. Rice (1845-1934), Emma L. Borden (1848-1872), Edmund James Borden (1852-1927), Flora E. Exelby (1864-1941).

At the age of sixteen Palmer entered Albion College, in Albion, Michigan, and after a three-year course of study took her master's degree, M. A. 1862.

Career After graduation Hannah Borden Palmer began to teach in the union school in Lapeer, Michigan.

Dr. Palmer wrote a lengthy series in 1908 and 1909 about Albion History in the Albion Mirror newspaper entitled "Biographical Sketches", which provided valuable information about the early history of Albion. Palmer attended the Albion public school, and the Albion Seminary and Albion College. He graduated from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as a medic in 1864. His uncle, Dr. Alonzo B. Palmer was dean of the medical school there.

In 1881, after the death of all four of her children, she moved to Boulder, Colorado, and then in 1886 to Buffalo, New York, always with her husband. They lived at 309 Plymouth Avenue.

She spent the last 5 years of her life at the Episcopal Church Home and died from arterial sclerosis on January 26, 1940. She was buried as a pauper at the Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo) with no headstone together with her husband's ashes.