Alice Lakey was born in Ohio on October 14, 1857 and grew up in Chicago. After living in Europe for almost 10 years, Miss Lakey decided to make her home in Cranford, New Jersey. Once there, she quickly became involved in many civic organizations and causes. Her actions encouraged town fathers to pass numerous ordinances, including the placing of trash receptacles throughout the town; collection of garbage and ashes; purchasing of snow plows for the winter and watering carts for the summer; implementing Central Railroad noise reduction; establishing the first grade school and the first fire department; founding of a baby clinic, the first cleanup week, the Union County Vocational School, senior citizen housing and a program to fight drug addiction; and censoring of public movies.

In 1903, Miss Lakey became very involved with an act concerning the purity of food. She and the act's sponsor met with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 about the Pure Food and Drug Act, and were challenged by the President to obtain signed letters and to present them before Congress. Once they had done this, he vowed he would help them to pass the bill. Miss Lakey's efforts had a phenomenal effect; one million letters written by American woman, requesting passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, were sent to Washington. In 1906, the bill was enacted and Alice Lakey's name was inscribed in the National Archives. She was also instrumental in securing the enactment of the Federal weights and measures law. Because of these efforts, she was the first woman to be listed in "Who's Who", and became the first Cranford woman to be named a member of the National Academy of Social Sciences for her groundbreaking work in these areas.

Fannie Bates was known as "the Mother of Cranford." A business woman and civic activist, Mrs. Bates built Hampton Hall, Cranford's first fashionable residence hotel after her husband's death in 1892. Later, she also owned and operated the Riverside. In 1896 she founded the Cranford Village Improvement Association and was elected president. In April 1914, Mrs. Bates was elected as a member of the Cranford Board of Education. Fannie Bates was not only a wife, but a woman of her time who established hotels, served her town, and supported woman's suffrage.