Early Proponent of the Deaconess Movement Jane Bancroft Robinson, daughter of a Methodist minister, studied in the United States, Switzerland, and France, earning many degrees, including a Ph.D. She was professor of French Literature and Language at Northwestern University and dean of its Woman’s College from 1878 to 1885. She married George O. Robinson in...
Pioneer Missionary among Freedwomen and Girls Jennie Hartzel began work among the freedwomen in New Orleans in 1876. Her work was approved by officials of the Methodist Episcopal Church and reported through the Freedman’s Aid Society. With Bishop Wiley and Dr. and Mrs. R.S. Rust, she raised funds; and a school with three teachers was...
Pioneering MECS Home Missioner and Educational Missionary to China Born in Watkinsville, Georgia, Laura Haygood moved to Atlanta at age seven, received her early education from her mother, enrolled at Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Georgia at age sixteen, and graduated in two years (1864). She established a private school for girls in 1966. In 1872,...
Care for the Earth: A Legacy of Acting for Climate Justice Climate justice, one of United Methodist Women’s current mission priorities, has long been a legacy of United Methodist Women. Care for creation, commanded by God in Genesis 1, is an essential part of living out our mission of faith, hope and love in action....
Long-serving missionary to Native Americans in Oklahoma Educator, nurse, civic and church leader, Elizabeth Fulton, at age seventeen, braved the dangers of traveling West to answer the call to become a teacher at the mission school at Tishomingo, Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma. It is claimed that five of her pupils became chiefs of...
Co-founder of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South Willie Elizabeth Harding McGavock was a Tennessee resident whose life centered in her family, her home and the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which she was a founder. In 1875, when she heard Dr. and Mrs....
Passionate spokesperson for mission Millicent Rench, fondly known to those who loved her as “Billie,” was a passionate spokesperson for mission in her local church and throughout United Methodism in eastern Michigan, an area known during her life as the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church. Rench was also passionate about her church family....
Mission Promoter Extraordinaire Mary Clarke Nind became a member of the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Winona, Minnesota, in 1866, and in 1879 joined the Minneapolis Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. Two of the Nind’s five children were in the mission field in the 1880s – Emma Nind Lacy in China, and George Nind in the...
Advocate for Women’s Roles in Mission Evelyn Riley Nicholson was born in Minnesota. She was president of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society from 1921 to 1940. In 1923, she gave a major address at the International Missionary Council on “The Place of Women in the Church on the Mission Field.” One of the first women...
Proponent of Women Leaders Margaret Ross Miller helped form church women’s organizations in the Philippine Islands, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, as well as in California. Her husband was appointed to special work in South America prior to his election as bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1924. In 1921, Mrs. Miller...
