Rosa Miller Avery  Rosa Miller Avery (pen name, Sue Smith and unknown male pseudonyms; May 21, 1830 – November 9, 1894) was an American abolitionist, political reformer, second-generation suffragist, and writer. Avery's childhood home was a noted "underground ralroad station". As an adult, while living in Ashtabula, Ohio, she organized the first anti-slavery society of that time in that section of the United States. During the Civil War, she wrote constantly for the various papers and journals of that day on the union and emancipation, being obliged to use a male signature in order to gain attention. Many of her articles and responses to the opponents of franchise for women appeared in the "Chicago Inter-Ocean". Her pen-name signed to her later writings was "Sue Smith.” These were on social questions and things helpful to young people. After removing to Chicago, she took up the work of social purity and equal suffrage, writing many articles for the Chicago press on these subjects. Rosa Mary Miller was born in Madison, Ohio, May 21, 1830. Her father, Nahum Miller, was born in Vermont. He was one of the first settlers in the Madison area of Lake County, Ohio. He located on the county's Middle Ridge before there was a road there, made a clearing in the woods and built his cabin, and there developed a farm and passed his life. He was a reader of biblical and political history, and held broad humanitarian views. He loved children, adopting two in addition to five children of his own. Her mother, Esther McDaniels or McDonald, was a daughter of James McDonald, an early settler of Ashtabula County, Ohio. Esther hinted now and then, that "the laws pertaining to property and the holding of children were as oppressive for women as for negroes". Remembering this, Avery always spoke of her mother as her inspiration to work for woman's advancement. One of Avery's sisters was Roxana. While attending the Madison seminary, Avery wrote stirring anti-slavery essays, which were met with derision and abuse. Two students in her school confessed to her that her anti-slavery papers induced them to give up their ambition for a career in religion to study law and politics. On September 1, 1853, she married Cyrus Avery, of Oberlin, Ohio. During their residence in Ashtabula, Ohio, she organized the first anti-slavery society ever known in that village, but not a clergyman in the town would give notice of its meetings so late as two years before the American Civil War, and that, too, in the county home of Joshua Reed Giddings and Benjamin Wade.