Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

Best known as the author of Travels in the Far East, she published an account of her travels that was still being reissued more than a century later. Available records identify her as Ellen Mary "Nellie" Hayes Peck, born in Vermont in 1838 and later active in Milwaukee society.

Beyond her writing, she was deeply involved in public and civic life. She was a charter member of the Woman's Club of Wisconsin, served as its seventh president from 1887 to 1889, and helped create the Athenaeum, described as the country's first women's stock corporation.

She also played a leading role in hereditary and patriotic organizations, including service as Wisconsin State Regent for the Daughters of the American Revolution and later as governor of the Wisconsin Mayflower Society. She died in Denver in 1909 and was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.