Leader in and Student of Mission Following graduation from Dillard University in New Orleans, Emma Wilson Strother went to work with her mother, Clara J. Wilson, who was one of the superintendents of the National Friendship Home in Cincinnati. Emma later became superintendent of the Mother’s Memorial Center (now Wesley Child Care Center), which was...
Missionary, Mission Board Staff, and Mission Advocate From her early years of growing up in a parsonage to her years as a professional person, and later a lay woman active in church affairs, Kathryne Bieri Sears was devoted to mission. At age twenty-four, she was the first single woman appointed by the Methodist Episcopal Board...
Pioneer Missionary in Nigeria For forty years, Aletha Knapp Faust served as a pioneer missionary in Nigeria, Africa, spanning the years 1930 to 1970. Born in Holton, Kansas, she graduated from North Central College, Naperville, Illinois, and earned a master’s degree at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. During their first eighteen years with the Pero tribe...
Mama Yema in the Congo Growing up in Harrison, Arkansas, Edith wanted to become a missionary and serve in Africa. After graduation from Peabody and Scarritt Colleges in Nashville, Tennessee, she was commissioned in 1931, and spent the next thirty-six years in Zaire (Congo) involved in Christian education, women’s work, social evangelism, directing schools and...
Missionary to Children and Youth in the Philippines Ms. Marion M. Walker retired in 1970 after 40 years of missionary service in the Philippines and was awarded a plaque of appreciation. She was well-loved by the Aetas of Patling area in Tarlac. Mr. Walker helped children and young people to obtain education. She established a...
Michigan Advocate for Human Rights Louise Donaldson is remembered for her involvement in human rights issues. In Dearborn, Michigan, she founded a local Council on Human Rights, and was instrumental in the desegregation of every restaurant in her community. She worked with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to register black voters in...
Pioneer in establishing schools for women and girls Hester Williams, “Aunt Hester,” was a former slave who had little formal schooling, yet she pioneered in establishing schools for women and girls in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1882 Hester Williams addressed the Louisiana Annual Conference and told of her work among the freedwomen. She had “a...
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,...
First Filipino President of Harris Memorial College Prudencia L. Fabro, the first Filipino President of Harris Memorial College, was one of the most outstanding woman leaders in the Methodist-related institutions whose major contribution was the training, molding and forming of young women who answered the call to serve as deaconesses in the Methodist Church. She...
Filipino-Led Biblewomen School Harris Training School in the Philippines was closed during the years of World War II. To fill the void, Ka Onang Memorial Bible Institute was started in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija under the leadership of Rev. Carlos Mañacop and Miss Patrocino Ocamp, the last principal of Mary Brown Townsend Bible School in Lingayen....
