Founder of Woman’s Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association At age twenty, Minerva Strawman was invited to a missionary tea given by the Woman’s Missionary Society of the United Brethren Church. Delighted with what she saw and heard, she asked her father, a minister and member of the Board of Missions of the Evangelical Association,...
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...
Mission Bishop, Ecumenical Leader, and Father of the Wesley Foundation Movement Bishop James Chamberlain Baker, 1879 – 1969, was a prominent mission bishop and ecumenical mission leader who is likely best remembered as “Father of the Wesley Foundation movement”—student ministries on the campuses of publicly funded colleges and universities. He served as a bishop in...
A Treasure of a Treasurer A key leader in The United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe was Rhodes Chimonyo, a Person in Mission in his own country. Rhodes was a lay person who took over the position of field treasurer from a missionary in 1975. He received the funds from the World Division of the Board...
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...
