First Ordained African-American Methodist Woman and Missionary to Appalachia Sallie Crenshaw was twice a ground-breaker in African-American women’s ordination in the Methodist tradition. In 1936, she was one of the two first African-American woman ordained as a local elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the East Tennessee Conference. Then in 1956 she was one...
Missionary to Korea and First Woman Fully Ordained in the Methodist Church In 1956 the General Conference granted full clergy rights to women by voting that they could be admitted into full ministerial membership in Methodist Annual Conferences. On May 18, within a month of this action, Ms. Maud K. Jensen, a missionary to Korea,...
Leader among Central Conference Bishops Born in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur Province, in 1898, Valencia grew up as a Roman Catholic, although he became acquainted with Protestants through the United Brethren mission near his home. He came from a family involved in the Filipino struggle for independence. His uncle was a guerrilla in the conflict with...
Educator and Leader for Abolishing the Central Jurisdiction Thomas was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and was ordained and became an elder in the South Carolina Conference of the Central Jurisdiction in 1944. After serving as a pastor, he taught at Gammon Theological Seminary. He became associate director of the Department of Education Institutions of...
Methodist Educators, Relief Leader, Bishops J. W. Ernst Sommer was born to a German Wesleyan minister father and British mother in Germany. He went to Kingswood, Cambridge University, and the university at Lausanne for his education. He taught in London and married a Briton, Beatrice Dibben. From 1907 to 1912, he was a missionary in...
Deaconess Leading Rural Ministry Ann McKenzie’s entry into ministry matches that of many women who chose to become deaconesses in The Methodist Church. When she heard about women doing church work, nothing was said about ordination – women could not be full members of annual conferences at that time, and no one mentioned mission work;...
Theological Educator Lloyd Knox used his skills and leadership in two different societies. He and his family had gone to Cuba, where he taught in the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas. In September 1960, the U.S. embassy sent word to all U.S. citizens to leave Cuba. But the embassy did not provide assistance for that...
Advocate of Integration in Methodism Born August 24, 1912, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Golden received degrees from Clark College and Gammon Theological Seminary, both in Atlanta. He was ordained an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in 1938. He served several congregations in the South before becoming professor in the Department of Religion and...
Leader of Deaconesses and Women’s Mission Work Ewing came out of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, although it became part of The Methodist Church when she was a teenager. As she was growing up, she planned to go to Scarritt College. She not only completed her education there but stayed on for fifteen years to...
Leader of Board of Foreign Missions Diffendorfer claimed that as a Sunday school student he was inspired with such a passion for mission by British missionary David Livingstone that it lasted his whole life. But his mother claimed that his personality had elements of P. T. Barnum as well. The passion and the leadership became...
