Eva Craig Graves Doughty

Eva Craig Graves was born in Warsaw, Kentucky, December 1, 1852. Her father, Judge Lorenzo Graves, was a politician and lawyer. Her mother was Virginia Hampton-Graves.[1][2]

Doughty was educated in Oxford Female College, Oxford, Ohio, leaving her Kentucky home during the civil war years from 1860 to 1864, which years she passed in the college with her two other sisters. Prior to that, she had been taught by private tutors. After a four-year course in Oxford, she entered the Academy of the Most Holy Rosary, in Louisville, Kentucky, conducted by sisters of the Dominican Order, where she studied nearly three years, and left just two months before she would have been graduated, to accompany a sister, whose husband was in the regular army, to a frontier post.[1][2]

On May 24, 1874. she married John R. Doughty,[2] then editor and proprietor of the Mount Pleasant, Michigan, Enterprise. She was at once installed as associate editor with her husband. She did regular newspaper work on that paper for fourteen years, keeping the office hours and doing anything connected with the office work, from proof-reading and type-setting to writing for any department of the paper where "copy" was called for. Subsequently, Mr. Doughty sold the Enterprise and for three years engaged in business in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the family removed.[1]

There, Mrs. Doughty engaged in public work. She was elected president of the Grand Rapids Equal Suffrage Association, which position she resigned when the family removed to Gladwin, Michigan. While in Grand Rapids, Mrs. Doughty, Etta S. Wilson, of the Telegram-Herald, and Mrs Fleming, connected with the Leader, held the first meeting and planned the organization of the Michigan Women's Press Association, of which Mrs. Doughty remained an active member.[1]

In 1890, Mr. Doughty commenced the publication of the Leader in Gladwin, being the founder and owner of the plant. Mrs. Doughty was regularly engaged on that paper. In addition to general newspaper work, Mrs. Doughty served as special correspondent of several city daily papers and was for some time a contributor to the Sunny South, writing short stories, sketches and an occasional poem. Having sold the Gladwin Leader in January 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Doughty bought the Post, of Port Austin, Michigan, in May of the same year, where Mrs. Doughty was engaged daily as assistant editor of that paper.[1]

Doughty was an active member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), serving as secretary of the Eighth Congressional District for four years. She belonged to the Good Templars, the Royal Templars, and the Golden Rod Lodge, Daughters of Rebekah. Doughty was a member of the Michigan Historical Society, [3] and for several years, she was the secretary of the Mt. Pleasant Library, Literary and Musical Association, an organization of which she was one of the founders.[1]

In religion, Doughty engaged in Sunday-school work and was a member of the Presbyterian Church. She had three children, two sons (Lorenzo G. and Ole W.) and a daughter (Virgaline).[1][2]