Sue Harper Mims

Sue Harper Mims (17 May 1842 - 30 January 1913), C.S.D., was a social leader in Atlanta, Georgia and the wife of Livingston Mims, the 37th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. She was a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and helped found its branch church in Atlanta.

Biography Sue Harper was born on May 17, 1842, in Brandon, Mississippi to Col. William C. Harper, a lawyer, and his wife Mary C. Johnson Harper. She received a high quality education and traveled extensively, She was very religious, and was a member of the Episcopal Church. Harper married Maj. Livingston Mims in 1866, a prominent businessman and civil war veteran who would become the mayor of Atlanta in 1901. At that time, Mims had an illness physicians had not been able to cure for fifteen years, and which apparently "prevented her from walking more than a few blocks." After hearing Bartlett speak, she sought her help. Mims soon recovered and began studying Christian Science and telling others about the faith. and was the first Christian Science lecturer to deliver an official lecture in the southern United States. In her work as a teacher, she taught both black and white students, which was notable in the still segregated south. Mims' students included Etter Haden Foster, Lewis Johnson, and Ides Johnson, who founded First Church of Christ, Scientist in Birmingham, Alabama; Elizabeth Earl Jones, another teacher of Christian Science; and Orelia Key Bell, a poet and author. She also wrote a number of articles for the church periodicals. Her husband Livingston Mims, who died in 1906, never became a member of the church, but supported his wife.