Alice Lee (civic leader)

Lee and Teats are, according to the San Diego Historical Resource Board, "one of the first documented domestic partnerships in San Diego," being documented living together in various Census records; in the 1930 Census, Lee was the Head of Household and Teats was Partner (and not Lodger while often used in such cases).

Together they owned various real estate properties in San Diego, had an active civic and social life, and were accepted as a couple.

[1] Lee is viewed as a “Civic Leader in San Diego Union, the Ticonderoga Sentinel, the Boston Globe, and Women of the West: A Series of Biographical Sketches of Living Eminent Women in the Eleven Western States of the United States of America”.

[2] Lee died on February 18, 1943, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was spending the winter, and is buried at Hillside Cemetery, Westport.

[3] In 1887, at age 34, Alice Lee purchased Marvin House (John Halstead’s original pub) in Westport, New York, transforming it into a posh hotel.

Westport Inn consisted of additional "cottages", a boathouse, gardens, tennis and croquet courts, a 6-hole Golf course and the annex (located on the other side of Main Street).

Lee was a supporter of the Progressive movement, and other than Theodore Roosevelt, she was friends with Florence Nightingale, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the family of Amos Bronson Alcott.

[4][3] She represented the California Progressive Party at the National Convention held in Chicago, Illinois after they noticed her contributions.

[1][9] The public playground system kept kids from developing bad habits and instead gave them somewhere to socialize in a healthy manner.

Katherine's grand niece, according to San Diego Magazine, said, "the family lore considered the pair to be lesbians.