Born Susan Snowden in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1840, she attended the Cincinnati Female Seminary. After graduating in 1857, she became a teacher at her alma mater until her marriage to John Henry Fessenden in 1864. She became interested in church and temperance work and began speaking on reform issues including votes for women, prohibition, and assistance to the poor. Fessenden established the Young Women’s Christian Association of Sioux City, Iowa, where she was living in the 1870s. She moved to Boston in 1882 after her two daughters and later her son enrolled at Boston University. She was elected president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1890 and remained in that office for eight years. Fessenden lived in Dorchester from 1891 – 1900. Later she traveled widely giving lectures in support of the temperance movement. She moved to Northfield, Minnesota, to live with her daughter in her last years and died in 1932 having lived a long and productive life.
