On April 15, 1859, former Gov. Luren D. Dickinson was born in New York. Dickinson moved to Michigan as a teenager and settled in Charlotte. There, he was a teacher, farmer and school principal. Dickinson was elected to the Michigan House in 1886. He also served in the Senate. Dickinson was elected lieutenant governor in 1914, serving six terms before being elected to that office again in 1938. With the death of Gov. Frank Fitzgerald on March 16, 1939, Dickinson became Michigan’s oldest governor and the only lieutenant governor to succeed an incumbent who died in office.
Michigan’s thirty-seventh governor, Luren D. Dickinson (1859 ~ 1943), prided himself of being a frugal farmer. As a young man he taught school and served as principal of Potterville High School before becoming superintendent at age 21. He later served as assessor, township clerk, township supervisor, state representative, state senator, and seven terms as lieutenant governor. In 1939 he became governor, at age 79, upon the death of Governor Frank Fitzgerald. In 1940 he appointed the state’s first woman lieutenant governor, Matilda Dodge Wilson. A devoutly religious man, Dickenson claimed he had “a pipeline to God,” ardently opposed liquor, and waged war on “sin and high life practices.” He lost his election bid in 1940.
Source : Michigan History magazine and Luren D. Dickinson.