Twelfth Generation

342. Lucy "Anne" NICOL was born on 25 November 1926 in Monroe County, WI.^64,94 She was listed as "Anne" in the 1930 Census.

Biographical Sketch: "Anne was born in 1926 on a farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. Her mother, Lucy Sowle Nicol, died when Anne was 2. Anne is descended on her mother's side of the family from George Sowle, a passenger of the Mayflower, an apprentice, NOT A PILGRIM, mind you, (but) a proven lineage. When religionists have told Anne to "go back where she came from," she has occasionally pointed out her ancient-for-this-country family tree.

Anne's father, Jason Nicol, was not religious. He regarded religious belief as embarrassing. Anne entered first grade at her one-room school at age 4, became a voracious reader, and is still grateful to freethinker Andrew Carnegie for endowing the Tomah, Wis. public library. (I bet Anne doesn't know that she and Andrew Carnegie were born on the same day. But not the same year.)

Anne has always worked. She took over housework and cooking for her father and 3 brothers when she was 12. She graduated from high school at 16, worked for room and board and waitressed to pay for college, and graduated with an English degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1949. That year she married my father, Paul Joseph Gaylor, and they had four children.

She worked throughout her early marriage and pregnancies. In 1958, she started the first temporary office help service in Madison. In 1959, with a partner, she opened the first private employment agency in town. She sold the successful business in 1966.
When she and my father purchased the Middleton Times Tribune, she edited it from 1967-1970 and turned it into an award-winning weekly. It was when she wrote the first editorial in the state, one of the first such editorials anywhere in the nation, in 1967, calling for legalization of abortion, that the next phase of her life began.
Desperate women began to phone her, asking where they could go for safe abortions. She launched into activism, abortion rights, feminist groups and Zero Population Growth.

She founded the ZPG Abortion Referral Service in 1970. Between 1970 and 1975, she made more than than 20,000 referrals. She took calls at home day and night, especially after her number was published without her permission in Playboy!

Because our home number was used for so many of my mother's groups, we were instructed as teenagers to answer our home phone: "This is (238-XXXX)." The joke around our house was that on her tombstone would surely one day be inscribed: "Here lies 238-XXXX." For years, most pictures of my mother would show her on the phone.

In 1972, aware of the difficulty in raising funds to pay for abortion, Anne co-founded the Women's Medical Fund, to help low-income women in tragic circumstances. These phone calls still come in day and night. Anne has run the Women's Medical Fund charity as a volunteer for THIRTY-TWO years!

As a feminist activist, Anne awarding a "male chauvinist pig" award to a newspaper (the reporter, who entered into the spirit, was very obviously not an MCP!).

In 1975, she wrote the book, Abortion Is a Blessing, about the battle to legalize abortion and contraception in Wisconsin.

My mother and I and a Milwaukee gentlemen first founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation as a regional group when I was a college student in 1976. The impetus for the group was our somehow becoming aware they were opening county board meetings with prayer.

We went down to ask them to stop this unconstitutional practice, and thought we would sound more powerful if we called ourselves a group. So we made up a name--and the rest is history!

After the Freedom From Religion Foundation went national, Phil Donahue of Roman Catholic background invited her to be a guest on his widely-watched TV program, but refused to introduce Anne as the author of such a book. He said the title, "Abortion is a Blessing," would create shockwaves around the nation. During the live show, Anne exposed his censorship to prove the suppressive effect religion has on the media. A red-faced Donahue ran down the aisle showing Anne's book to the nation. After that show, Anne & FFRF received 1,000 letters, 3 out of 4 supportive."
She appeared in the census in 1930 in La Grange Township, Monroe County, WI.⁹⁴

Lucy "Anne" NICOL and Paul Joseph GAYLOR were married in 1949.¹⁹⁹ They had four children. Paul Joseph GAYLOR was born (date unknown).

Lucy "Anne" NICOL and Paul Joseph GAYLOR had the following children: