Lease, Mary Elizabeth, lawyer and lecturer, was born at Ridgway, Pa., Sept. 11, 1853, a daughter of Joseph P. and Mary E. (Murray) Clyens. She was educated at St. Elizabeth's Academy, Allegany, N. Y., and soon after leaving school came to Kansas, where she was admitted to the bar in 1885. In 1888 she made her first public political speech in a union labor convention, and two years later she made over 160 speeches in Kansas for the Farmers' Alliance, attracting wide attention by her radical utterances. She was appointed president of the state board of charities, being the first woman in the United States to hold such a position. She was one of the orators on "Kansas Day" at the Columbian exposition in Chicago in 1893; represented Kansas at the national conference of charities and corrections the same year, and was vice-president of the world's peace congress. On Jan. 30, 1873, she was married to Charles L. Lease at the Osage mission. In 1901 she obtained a divorce from her husband, and soon after removed to New York. Mrs. Lease has written for the magazines and is the author of "The Problem of Civilization Solved."