Wells served on the Massachusetts Board of Education for twenty-four years beginning in 1888 and was a vice president of the New England Women's Club.

[2][3] On her father's side, Wells was descended from the early New England colonist Mary Chilton and former Yale College President Ezra Stiles.

[4] During the 1890s, Wells was involved in the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association, which promoted modern sanitation practices among working class families.

[4] Wells' brother, William Channing Gannett, a liberal Unitarian minister and a strong advocate for women's rights, was reportedly dismayed when he learned of his sister's devotion to the anti-suffragist cause, though the two maintained a close relationship.

In this letter, she wrote, "Our country needs that one half of its people at least should be freed from the restrictions of political organization and ready to work for home, school, and state as women, and not as partisans.