Addie L. Ballou
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Addie (1838-1916) Ballou was born in Chagrin Falls in1838. Her parents, Alexander and Polly (Eldredge) Hart, were two of the early settlers of Chagrin. Addie only had a year or two of a common school education in Chagrin Falls before her family moved to frontier Wisconsin in 1849.
Even without a formal education, she was a poet and world renowned artist. Undaunted and outspoken, Addie was never afraid to speak up or fight for a good cause, in spite of opposition from family.
During her life, she was a wife and mother, an army nurse, a published poet, the second woman to become a licensed notary in California, a social activist, and a Spiritualist missionary.
Addie even traveled to Melbourne, Australia, to promote women’s rights and to pursue her painting career. It is through her poetry, however, that we know she never forgot her roots in Chagrin Falls. Addie died in San Francisco in 1916.
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