Lydia Arms Avery Coonley-Ward (January 31, 1845 – February 26, 1924) was a social leader, clubwoman and writer. Coonley served as a president of the Chicago Women's Club and was known for her poetry. She also helped her second husband, Henry Augustus Ward, enlarge his meteorite collection.
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Biography
Coonley was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky when she was five. She was the oldest of five other siblings. Her parents were abolitionists and her father's factory was used as a hospital for Union soldiers during the Civil War. Coonley's mother, Susan Look Avery, was an important leader in the women's suffrage movement and started the first woman's club in Louisville.
She married John Clark Coonley on December 24, 1867, and the couple moved to St. Louis after their marriage until 1868, when they came back to Louisville so that John could work in her father's business. In 1873, after establishing a Chicago-based company, the family moved to Chicago. She and her husband had six children, all of whom she encouraged to write. On October 6, 1882, her husband died in Indianapolis.
Coonley was a member of the Chicago Women's Club, joining sometime in the late 1880s. On March 21, 1888, she served as one of the representatives of the club to the Women's International Congress in Washington, D.C. Between 1895 and 1896, she served as the president of the Chicago Women's Club. On May 17, 1901, she urged the club to take an official position on the issue of peace.