Lavinia was the daughter of Jabez Mead and Minerva Shirley Taylor Mead. Her full brothers and sisters, were Judge Cecil Albert Mead, Volney Coe Mead and Hester Vance Mead Harkins.
Jabez and Minerva, with their famiy moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota in 1881

This was a second marriage for both Jabez and Shirley and they each brought children to the blended family.

Jabez married Hannah Orr about 1830 in Ohio and they had the following children : Smith, Cephas, Henry B, William C and George G , Elizabeth Eugenia Mead Macomber and Jane P Mead Hartson. Hannah died around 1849.

Shirley had been married 1st to Jacob Kniss and they had the following children: Marimee Kniss Hurlbert MD, George Wilber and Pierce Jacob, Andrew and John, Emma Marie and Ella Josephine Kniss.

So Lavinia was one of the youngest of a very large family of children.
She never married.

Lavinia was a Missionary and her travels took her around the world. She was in India for a year ,1887, and also spent many years in Japan.

Her 1923 passport application lists her as being a Missionary, first to Inda 1887-1888 then to Japan 1890-1923.
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Obituary:
Miss Lavinia Mead Dies in Minneapolis
Relatives have received word that Miss Lavinia Mead, 82, former Rock county school teacher, and who later spent 36 years as a missionary in Japan, for the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, died Thursday of last week in Minneapolis at the home of Mrs. Elna Engleman.
Miss Mead, an aunt of Mrs. W. C. Schwartz, of this city, came to Rock County in 1881 with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jabes Mead from Wisconsin where she was born. Before taking her theological training in a Minneapolis school, she taught school in Rock County.
She was the co-founder of the Baptist Mission high school in Sendai, Japan and of the Bible training school in Osaka, where before her retirement 15 years ago, she was publicly recognized by the governo of Osaka prefecture for her services in Christian Education. Her last missionary post was in Tokyo.
Funeral services were held in Minneapolis Saturday.

(The Rock County Star, Luverne, MN 16 Oct 1941, Sec 1, Page 4 column 5.)