Looking backward, thinking forward : the jubilee history of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Front matter

Mrs. Dan B. BRUMMITT

LOOKING BACKWARD THINKING FORWARD=:,.

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Foreword

The purpose of this little volume is to provide a brief history of an organization, not to weave a fascinating tale of fiction and romance.

The critical reader will Gierover inaccuracies in facts and figures, for they are there. In spite of the patient scrutiny of the committee appointed by the Board of Trustees, which has read not only the manuscript but the proofs, and in spite of constant and careful consulting of the sources, errors will be found. The author will welcome corrections, which will be put at the disposal of future historians of the Society.

To the committee mentioned above, gratitude and appreciation are due. Its members were: Mrs. Wilbur P. Thirkield, the fifth President of The Woman’s Home Missionary Society, who served thirteen years and is at present a member of the Board of Trustees; Miss E. Jean Oram, long associated with the deaconess work, friend of the Indian work, interested vitally in all the affairs of the Society, and at present its First Vice- President; and Mrs. Levi Gilbert, editor of Woman’s Home Missions.

Much of the work of The Woman’s Home Missionary Society is done through what the rank and file know as “Conference work.’’ It may be necessary to say to the uninitiated reader that this book reports mainly the national work, conference undertakings being briefly reported in smaller type. All of the eighty-five conference, which together constitute the national organization, have been urged to prepare separate histories of their enterprises and activities, for their own constituencies.

Books written in other years by other historians from the ranks of the organization have been freely drawn upon, and have been constant help and inspiration. They are: “Twenty Years’ History,” by Mrs. —L. T. Tomkinson; ‘Souvenir Exhibit,” compiled by

FOREWORD various members in 1900; ‘‘In Memoriam,” a sketch of the life and work of Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, the first President, by Mrs. John Davis; and “‘The Balance Wheel,” by Mrs. Ellen Coughlin Keeler.

The file of the Annual Reports has been constantly before us, and has been our joy and despair, our distraction and haven of refuge.

The work has been too difficult, but it has been deeply interesting. It has been wearisome but inspiring. It has been deadly dull and yet delightsome. So there is gratitude that the chairman of the Jubilee was asked to add the writing of this history to the other joys and responsibilities of the five years.

The slogan of the Jubilee has been made so beautiful and so meaningful by the loyal women who have worked at the plans prepared by the Jubilee Committee, that we could not forbear to choose the words as the title of the book—‘‘LOOKING BACKWARD: THINKING FORWARD.”

If the book has any justification, it is that it does not merely indulge in ‘‘Looking Backward,” but that it persists in ‘Thinking Forward.’’ Therefore the last official act of the chairman of the Jubilee is the dedication of this book to the youth who, in the next fifty years, are to Make Missions Modern.

Stella Wyatt Brummitt.

CHAPTER

Table of Contents

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Chapter I

To have sown in the hearts of men One thought that will not die, To have been a link in the chain of life, Shall be immortality.

—Edwin Hatch.

New Uses “For the love of Christ and in his name”’ for an Old is an old Waldensian rallying cry of martyrs Motto. in centuries gone by. When our own group

took these stirring words as the device of the organization, Edward Everett Hale, the author of “In His Name’”’ commended their use, since the purpose of the organization was to train children and youth to do ‘‘In His Name.”’ John G. Whittier also sent a congratulatory appreciation of the proposed motive for the work, appealing as it did to the altruism of a Quaker poet and reformer.

The First In this day of women’s acknowledged of ‘‘These rights, it will seem strange to discover that Women.’ not until June, 1832, was there ever a mis-

sionary society organized for women only. This was called ‘“The Female Missionary Society of Lynchburg and Auxiliary Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.’’ The object is set forth in the preamble as follows:

“‘Being deeply sensible of the unmerited goodness of our Heavenly Father in having cast our lots in a land of light and liberty, having bestowed upon us the invaluable privileges of the gospel, we deem it our duty to put our mites into the treasury of the Lord to aid in sending the good news of salvation to those who know not a Saviour.”’

The work was prosecuted successfully by leading women of Lynchburg for nineteen years, when a division in the ranks of the local pastors brought about its dissolution, but not before there was reported $479 in the treasury. This was a large sum to be raised for missions in that time by so few people and the zealous and liberal spirit which distinguished Methodist women in 1832 is still cherished by their descendents and successors in 1930.

Women’s Mis- It would be a mistake for any one sions No Wo- to conclude that at last woman had man’s Whim. decided to assert herself and therefore

organize just for the sake of organizing. It should be rather realized that such counter forces were at work in America as compelled women who called themselves Christian to help stay the onrush of these forces.

It is said that ‘‘all movements which are worth while and are of permanent value to society involve the heroic, untiring and faithful service of noble, intelligent, broadminded and philanthropic men and women, who suffered much to make the public take interest and see the significance of the early beginnings.’

A Fateful The great tides of immigration had Date in Our turned toward our shores, and, just History. previous to the date so strongly fixed in

the minds of 500,000 women to-day, the year 1880, the number of these who came to the land of the free in a single year was one and a quarter millions.

The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church had been organized ten years before this date, so to it came interested men and women, begging that the Society should begin to care for the heathen from China, Japan, Italy and Greece on American soil. After full consideration, the official decision was rendered that the word ‘‘foreign’”’ in the Society’s title precluded the undertaking of work in the home land.

Again it must be noted that this magic date, 1880, came within the generation after the ending of the Civil War. The strife between brothers was ended, but sorrow and desolation, the usual aftermath of war, were found both in the North and the South. It was to ruined homes, broken hearts, and desolate land that the boys of the blue and gray had returned at the war’s end.

Reconstruc- Reconstruction time followed, when tion by to conquered and conqueror fell the Blundering. desolate, difficult task of rebuilding. Land

and houses could be mended, but pent-up emotions against the injustices and cruelties of war were not so easily subdued.

Added to the suspicion and strife of this time was one result of the war not reckoned with. The slave had been freed. Unlettered, untrained men and women were going out for the first time to battle with life without guide or restraint, as the Negroes left plantation home and shelter to claim the freedom promised in the Emancipation Proclamation. The Southern States had 6,000,000 Negroes whose wills were weakened by long servitude, a people ignorant of the common laws of living, the dire need of whose womanhood demanded Christian woman’s attention.

Over the war-scourged South swept another invasion. In the guise of friend and benefactor there came from the North hordes of carpet-baggers, men of evil motives, bad advice, and contemptible methods, to fatten on the unlettered, poverty-stricken Negroes who had yet to start in the progress ‘up from slavery.’ Strife was inevitable, as a people untried in citizenship, untrained in independence, followed these false and unscrupulous leaders.

Obeying the Another group was restless. Their Ever - West- forebears, Scotch, Irish and English, newward Urge. comers of an earlier time, had started west to find the wide open spaces where land could be had for the claiming. “Out west’’ was an indefinite place, at an indefinite distance, but the start was made on the long trail to the mountains, to Ohio, to the Louisiana territory, and even to the land of the

setting sun.

Wagons broke down, horses died, children sickened and died, frail womanhood broke under the hardships of the long way, of necessity camps were made, in mountain passes and coves. Tiny cabins were built and land cleared on mountain sides, and there came into existence the clearing and settlement of the forgotten frontiersman—beyond whose frustrated lives the growth of America went on unknown and unheeded.

Pioneers of these and other stocks pushed ever on westward, seeking a home for a strange new faith. Across the wide stretches of the plains whitening skulls and mounds of earth over loved bodies spoke of the toll taken by the hardships of the journey. By untold effort, struggling against wild nature and wilder men, themselves brutalized, this great migration pushed into the promised land of Utah and what its leaders called religious freedom. Some three million Mormons came to live in this territory.

The encroachments of this people, together with the general westward movement, drove “the first American”’ from his wild prairie, from which he retreated, desperately fighting, to a pitiful reservation. The paleface was infringing on a land which had always been his empire. His buffalo was ruthlessly destroyed, and the settler’s fences shut him out of his happy hunting grounds. Gone was the wandering in endless open space and sunlight, gone the hunting and the fishing. The inevitable reservation life was resented. The Great White Father, in theory solicitous for the needs of the Indian, for many years made him an object by turns of charity and exploitation.

The Needs ‘“‘The home is always the index of the Come to a progress of a people,’ declared General Focus. Eaton, Commissioner of Education at

Washington. And the need of model homes maintained by trained teachers, and nurses for the Negro was recognized.

The proverb, ‘‘He that provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel,’ seemed to indicate that on rugged frontier and in mountain cove the mountaineer was entitled to some attention at the church’s hands.

Then came 1880. ‘‘The heathen are filling our land. It is better that they come to us than that we go to them. They come that they may be converted,” said Bishop Thomson as the tide of immigration set in.

‘The teachings of the school are being neutralized by the degradation of the home,’ said Bishop Wiley; and women went out to claim the American home from Mormonism.

So it was that amid political, social, economic and religious need a few women lifted the Waldensian cry

“For the love of Christ and in His Name,” to make 1880 significant.

First Efforts In 1875, at a mass meeting of women to Do the in Baltimore it was resolved to petition Next Thing. the Freedman’s Aid Society, which had

been organized in 1866, to include women in its Board Membership, to which came the answer, “By the Act of Incorporation males only are eligible to the Board of Members, but—we unanimously recommend that women be cordially admitted to participate in all our meetings as advisors and counselors.”’

Acting under this suggestion, some progress was made, and in 1876, at the ninth annual meeting of the Freedman’s Aid Society in Pittsburgh, several women spoke on Sunday from pulpits, and called a woman’s meeting for the day following, at which time Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, Mrs. Mary G. Wheeler, and Mrs. Elizabeth Lownes Rust presented their case.

But the legal obstructions were not dislodged. On January 20, 1877, came the final decision: ‘‘In view of the fact that the introduction of females into the Board of Managers, by the law of the State of Ohio under which the Society holds its charter, would endanger its property, it is not practicable to elect a lady an Assistant Corresponding Secretary’’; but Mrs. Jennie F. Willing was offered ‘‘the appointment of Agent’”’ under the direction of the Corresponding Secretary, which position she declined.

A Woman Emerson says, ‘‘Civilization is simply Finds a Way. the influence of good women.’’ While

some good women were seeking a way to serve in the North, a woman was serving in the South. Mrs. Jennie C. Hartzell went to New Orleans in 1870 as a bride, with her young husband, who later became a world figure, as from pastorate to editorial chair, to the episcopacy, he went out to Africa to crown his career by great service in the Dark Continent.

Mrs. Hartzell went at first on errands of mercy from door to door among the Negroes. Children were born to her; her social duties were many; but always this ministering angel found time to do good among the black folks. The visit to the South in 1872 of Mrs. J. L. Whetstone, of Cincinnati, who there met Mrs. Hartzell and heard from the colored people of her deeds of mercy, and the visit of a recent bride, by the name of Mrs. R. S. Rust, gave encouragement to Mrs. Hartzell in the routine of her life.

Disturbance from Ku Klux bands, warring legislatures, black and white, added to the political agitation of the time. There were eight thousand colored refugees in New Orleans who fled from the Ku Klux, many of them bearing on their bodies the marks of mutilation. Dr. and Mrs. Rust remained in New Orleans three weeks, visiting in the homes, and speaking when occasion presented itself, with the result that Bishop Wiley and Dr. Rust “approved of the work that had been inaugurated by Mrs. Hartzell.”

Drivento This ‘‘work’’ was a tireless visiting, Do More. without a plan, collecting and disbursing money given for the purpose, and a “mission school started and taught by white missionaries at Wesley Chapel in the winter of 1877-78.”". Mrs. Hartzell says of this undertaking, ‘‘I became responsible for the regular salaries and for the rent and furnishings of the house.”

To the other troubles yellow fever’s scourge was added, and Mrs. Hartzell took her children North to escape its fury. Letters from Louisiana followed her,

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Mrs saying, “We are praying for you, Sister Hartzell, that you may be able to bring back with you missionaries and teachers who will take our daughters and save them.”’ To these in her heart Mrs. Hartzell made reply: “Lord, do with me what seemeth good in thy sight.”’

The answer to this humble cry was that she tried to arouse interest among the ladies of the churches in the North, and went back to New Orleans with $700 for her winter's work.

Four white missionaries were employed. Eight schools where sewing was taught, and a home for workers were made possible with this money, with the amazing result that five hundred girls and women were reached and helped. Later, thirteen such schools were maintained and reported to the Freedman’s Aid Society.

A significant venture was made at this time by Mrs. L. M. Dunton at Orangeburg, S. C., under the guidance of Dr. E. O. Thayer, in the establishing of a school and model home for Negro girls.

The Appeal Mrs. Hartzell’s health broke under the to Our Church strain of her responsibility, so to the Lawmakers. General Conference of May, 1880, in

Cincinnati, she went for help with her husband, seeking willing hands into whose keeping she might place the work that had grown too great for her.

Not so. The rush of business crowded it out, and Mrs. Hartzell is recorded as saying, ““The agony of that hour I can never forget. I was crushed. How could I go home to those colored mothers who were praying for me and tell them that the Northern women were not interested in them?”

Dr. A. B. Leonard was presiding elder of Cincinnati District, and then, as later, was keenly interested in things missionary. On seeing Mrs. Hartzell, he asked, “How is your Home Organization coming on?”

On being told the sad truth, this splendid man, from

whose home there came in another generation a May Leonard Woodruff to serve as Corresponding Secretary of the organization,. helped, with Dr. J. N. Irwin of

Trinity Church, to arrange a meeting in that church, on June 8, 1880.

The Eighth The meeting was held, and the epochof June making motion “to forma Woman’s Home Arrives. Missionary Society with recommendation for special attention to the Southern field,’ prevailed. Mrs. R. S. Rust presided and Mrs. J. C. Hartzell made the appeal, and the Cincinnati Daily Gazette of June 9, 1880, carried an article, part of which is here recorded for those who will some day be “Looking Backward” into the history of this event:

“About fifty ladies, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this city, met in the lecture room of Trinity Church yesterday afternoon to confer together concerning the organization of a society having for its purpose the amelioration of the conditions of the freedwoman in the South. . . . Mrs. J. L. Whetstone, who had recently returned from an extended visit in the South, urged the importance of extending it to the whole population as well.”

Several meetings followed, until on July 6, at Trinity, the committee on constitution, composed of Mrs. R. S. Rust, Mrs. Francis S. Hoyt and Mrs. J. L. Whetstone, presented a report which was adopted. Then came “‘the greatest difficulty’? in the selection of a President by the committee, composed of Mrs. Isaac W. Wiley, wife of Bishop Wiley; Mrs. R. S. Rust, Mrs. A. R. Clark, and Mrs. C. G. Comegys.

A Daring The next step is a beautiful bit of Plea Finds history which must never be allowed to be Quick An- forgotten. It is included in this history swer. with grateful appreciation to ‘“Twenty Years History,” from whence it is borrowed:

‘“‘No one could be found for the responsible position, so much time and earnest prayer was spent in seeking for divine guidance.’’ The committee was to report on July tenth, and up to the night before, no suitable person had been found. “In. the small hours of the morning Mrs Rust was awakened by her husband with the words, ‘Elizabeth, I have found your President; Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes’.”’

So to the White House went the call for help to the first lady of the land, who, being a Christian and a Methodist, as well as intensely patriotic, accepted the obligation.

Of this woman it is recorded that she was a beautiful, poised, cultured, Christian woman. She was not chosen merely because of her high position. She presided with distinction and intelligence, and was considered “God’s gift to us’? by the devout women who in those early days comprised the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.

Women Who Our own time has come to a fuller appre- Ventured All. ciation of the Pioneer Woman. Statues

are being erected in great cities, and on the plains, depicting the courage, the womanliness, and the unswerving purpose of the woman of the 1880 period and earlier.

This Jubilee year of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society is characterized by a building for to-morrow, or “Thinking Forward” program. There is an increased membership, there is new interest in literature, there are youth willing to pioneer now, when ‘‘to-day’s tasks are greater than yesterday’s vision.”’ The greatest building program undertaken in the history of the Society has been brought to a glorious culmination, as in five years the womanhood of the Society has built and paid for much needed buildings costing $1,500,000. But it is all because, in that yesterday which we are celebrating, the year 1880, were pioneer women with vision and daring.

Let us look at the leaders of that elder day, reverently taking our ‘“‘Looking Backward”’ attitude, knowing full well that

‘‘When you come where I[ have stepped, You will wonder why you wept.”

The first President, as has been said, came from the White House in the person of Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes. In a beautiful memorial volume written by

Mrs. John Davis, we are told she had a practical knowledge of household duties, and did not believe that the education of books is the only education The First for life.

Lady of the She was a good mother, as is proved by Land. the fact that her children were her comrades. She had beauty, grace, and dignity; but best of all she had ‘‘an exacting conscience, quick sympathies, an unsefish nature, and that rare common sense which kept her steady and unspoiled.”

In the morning paper of June 25, 1930, was printed the good news that President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover had ordered all wine glasses in the White House packed, labelled and stored, since they would not be used during the present administration, showing that in the White House to-day is a woman who could say with Lucy Webb Hayes, “I trust I am not a fanatic, but I do want my influence always to be in favor of temperance. I have never offered wine to my family or my guests. I am not willing to do so now. I am still to be mistress and hostess even though I may be the wife of the President of the United States.’

In Mrs. Hayes love of country approached a passion, and she knew the needs of the black race, since her husband had helped in the war to break their chains. Mrs. Davis tells this incident: ““We stood gravely talking of the important work we had before us, of the need of faith, of consecration and divine wisdom. She turned her sweet eyes, full of tears, upon me, and said, ‘Oh, I am not good, but I do try to keep the Golden Rule. Ido try to do to others as I would they should do to me’.”’

When she died, on June 25, 1889, General Fisk said, “The nation stands with uncovered head.” This was not because she had filled the highest station given to woman in our land, but because, as was said by Longfellow in a poem on her death,

““Whene’er a noble deed is wrought, Whene’er is spoke a noble thought, Our hearts in glad surprise To higher levels rise.’’

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A Gentle and Mrs. John Davis was most often Responsive characterized as the “right hand of the Soul. President.’ Therefore it was quite natural that the delegates, gathered at Indianapolis for the Annual Meeting of 1889, as they viewed the black-draped chair made vacant by the death of Mrs. Hayes, should elect Mrs. Davis as her successor. This pioneer brought as her beautiful gift “universal responsiveness, and was a working leader with a soul made gentle by the tenderness of Christ.”’ In four years death deprived the Society of its second leader. She was succeeded in the presidency by Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk, who for fifteen years lavishly used her gifts of personality, education, leadership, and consecration for the benefit of the Society.

A Soldier’s Many great men encouraged the Society Wife With in those days when it so sorely needed Courage of courage but probably its staunchest Her Own. friend was General Clinton B. Fisk, who

died three years before his wife began, as President, to complete his unfinished task. Mrs. Fisk gave such ready wit, reasonable sternness and unfailing perseverance to the task that the years of her presidency were years of gain and increase. She gave another rare gift to the Society, a daughter named Mary, whom the daughters of 1930 love as Mrs. Mary Fisk Park. To those who know Mrs. Park there can come no rarer experience than to sit at the feet of this lovely, cultured woman, who has poured out wealth and service and appreciation unlimited, and listen to her stories of ‘mother’? and her deeds of daring for the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.

Trail-Maker, The next President bears a name that Leader, and will live as long as a Woman’s Home Mis- Benefactor. sionary Society exists, for in George O.

Robinson Orphanage, and in Robincroft Rest Home, is perpetuated the name of the woman who was the fourth President of the Society, Mrs. George O. Robinson.

‘‘Who’s Who in America’”’ says of her that she is a scholar and philanthropist, but a grateful organization knows her as the one who initiated a Deaconess Work, who by giving of wealth taught the use of consecrated money, and who in many unrecorded ways has nobly served. Mrs. Robinson lives to-day, a woman who is deeply versed, not in books only, but in life.

‘‘She Loveth The first money given to the founda- Our People.’”’ tion of the new Society was in the form of a five-dollar gold piece from the mother of Bishop Gilbert Haven. In another generation a daughter of Bishop Haven became the fifth President of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society, in the person of Mrs. Wilbur P. Thirkield, who has served with her distinguished husband as he has gone from pastorate to college presidency and to the episcopacy. Mrs. Thirkield served thirteen years as President, and gave a rare Christian life, wide reading, the rich background of her home in the South and in other parts of the nation, holding her office up to the days just before the Jubilee. Retiring, she placed in the hands of the Chairman of the Jubilee a check for $1,300, the first gift for the Jubilee program of 1930. This she did in grateful appreciation of the strong co-operation given her in all advance movements, and the rare privilege of joyful service in such a cause.

A Practical Following Mrs. Thirkield there came Idealist tothe presidency Mrs. W. H. C. Goode, of at the Head. Sidney, Ohio, who at this writing has served four years, but who will continue to serve as long as she desires, for the Society has need of her gifts for constructive organization, for co-ordination, and for harmony. Mrs. Goode is in the right place for such a time as this, this age that demands the powers of wise and careful statesmanship which she possesses in large measure.

It is, of course, impossible to include in this chronicle the names of all the women who have developed and been developed as the fifty years have come and gone;

Ze and so it has seemed best to mention only the officers who have led the hosts of loyal women in this half-century.

No story would be complete without the names of the three women who, in the public eye, have stood for the Woman’s Home Missionary Society, as they have carried the ever-increasing burdens of the office of National Corresponding Secretary.

By Faith, Upon Mrs. Richard S. Rust first by Love, devolved the task of promotion work. by Sacrifice. This eminent woman was in close touch

with national affairs in 1880, and came to office knowing the conditions of the freed people, since she herself had organized in Cincinnati in 1876 an educational movement known as the “Lincoln Lyceum and Industrial School.’’ Her outstanding gift seems to have been that of persistent optimism, which with enthusiasm was sorely needed as the new enterprise was launched.

Mrs. Rust had the same good fortune which has come to the leaders of the movement through the years, in that her husband gave to her abundant help and encouragement. Because Dr. Rust was Secretary of the Freedman’s Aid Society, the new Corresponding Secretary was able to visit thirteen conferences in the company of her husband during the year 1880, meeting the travel cost as an item of personal expense. In fact, all financial ventures of that year, when plans and publicity were of utmost importance, when seven missionaries were placed in the field, seem to have been made possible by this devoted husband and wife, for we find an interesting quotation in an early report which says, ““The necessary checks were drawn once a month, and Dr. Rust endorsed them all.”’

‘A Thread The Fourth Annual Meeting, at Arch of Golden Street Church, Philadelphia, October 23- Deeds.” 28, 1885, was an enthusiastic affair, over

which the former “‘first lady of the land” presided. Two notable personages appeared on the platform: Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams, and Mrs.

Clinton B. Fisk. Both later came to possess places of honor and trust, Mrs. Fisk to be the President, and Mrs. Williams to take the Secretary’s portfolio from the hands of Mrs. Rust.

Mrs. Williams led the devotions at the first annual meeting, and went with Mrs. Rust to visit Conferences in the early days, but not until 1899 did she succeed to office. Like a thread of gold her deeds run through the history for sixteen years, when her mantle was placed on the shoulders of Mrs. May Leonard Woodruff.

An Eloquent It is significant that in Self-Denial Daughter of Year, when war was again wasting the the Church. nations, the office should pass from the

hands of the elder woman who, looking back, could see great accomplishments, to the younger, who, looking forward, could see the ravages of war to be mended, and in her first address called the roll of needed activities and quoted