The Grimes papers have been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Other Papers (non-correspondence); Subject files; Bills introduced in the Michigan legislature; Newspaper clippings; Printed material; Scrapbooks; and Miscellaneous.
Lucia Isabelle Voorhees Grimes was born on August 28, 1877 in Princeville, Illinois. She graduated from high school in 1895 and, after teaching for one year in a one-room country school, she enrolled in 1896 at Illinois State Normal School in Normal, Illinois. After a year's teaching in the Pekin, Illinois, high school (1898-1899), she enrolled at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 1902, with a BA, receiving at the same time a teacher's certificate in history and English. She taught for two years at the Escanaba, Michigan high school, and returned to the University of Michigan in 1904, enrolling in the graduate school. In 1905, she received her Master's degree in history. After two more years of teaching in Coldwater, Michigan and Oklahoma City, she married George Lyman Grimes on April 29, 1907.
During World War I and for nearly ten years afterward, Lucia Grimes worked with her husband as purchasing agent for the family firm of Grimes Molding Machine Company in Detroit. In 1928 she joined the faculty of Cass Technical High School in Detroit, where she taught history and English until her retirement in 1948.
Soon after her move to Detroit in 1907, Lucia Grimes became an active participant in the women's suffrage movement. Her first association was with the College Suffrage League; later she was one of the organizers of the Equal Suffrage League of Wayne County and chairman of its Political Department in which position she prepared a card file about each member of the Michigan legislature. She later prepared a similar file on all members of Congress for the National Women's Suffrage Association.
Lucia Grimes played a leading role in the National Woman's Party as one of the organizers of its Michigan branch. She worked as a challenger in the 1913 and 1917 elections when a women's suffrage amendment was put before Michigan voters, and took part in the preparations that led to the passage of the bill to give Michigan women presidential suffrage. By 1918, as legislative chair of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs, she was one of the leaders of the effort to have the state ratify the 19th amendment. In 1920, Michigan became the second state to ratify the 19th amendment.
After passage, Lucia Grimes continued her efforts to bring women in to the political arena. She was recording secretary of the Campaign League of Detroit, and president of the Wayne County Republican Club. In 1920, she was elected chair of the Legislative Council of Michigan Women.
