Hester C. Jeffrey

Hester C. Jeffrey (née Whitehurst c. 1842 – January 2, 1934), also known as Jeffreys or Jeffries, or Mrs. R. Jerome Jeffrey, after her husband She was educated, and an accomplished musician. By 1845, Jeffrey and her mother and her sister, Phoebe Whitehurst, had moved to Boston where their half-brother, Manuel Smith, was born in February 1845. In the 1855 Massachusetts Census and in the 1860 U.S. census, the three children are listed in the household of their maternal uncle, Coffin Pitts.

Jeffrey helped create clubs for African-American women, including the Susan B. Anthony Club for black women. This club worked towards women's suffrage and created a Mothers' Council, to help women with small children. which raised funds and commissioned the first monument to an African-American in 1897, a statue of Frederick Douglass, in his hometown of Rochester, New York. She was chosen to direct the music at its unveiling, as well as at the memorial service prior to it that would have included the unveiling, were the statue not delayed.

Jeffrey was friends with Susan B. Anthony and was often seen at Anthony's home in Rochester. The eulogy expressed both sorrow for Anthony's death and also praised her advocacy for women's suffrage. Jeffrey also created the first memorial for Anthony, which was a stained-glass window installed at the AME Zion church in Rochester and unveiled in 1907. Jeffrey's primary religious affiliation was with the AME Zion Church, but she also was a member of the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, the church that Anthony attended.

Her husband died in 1908 in Rochester. By 1915, Jeffrey had moved back to Boston, where she lived with her niece, Georgine (née Glover) Brown, at 418 Newbury St. The women taught music. Hester died on January 2, 1934, in Boston and is buried in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett next to her sister, Phoebe Whitehurst Glover. The family plot also has their brother Manuel, and Phoebe's three children and son-in-law.