USA > Ohio > History of the Central Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, 1856-1913 > Part 8
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Mrs. Clason gave fifteen official years in all to the society-
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
three as secretary of the Central Ohio division of the Branch. and twelve as Conference secretary of the Central Ohio Conference. These years of service were characterized by devotion, faithfulness in the performance of duty, high order of workmanship, liberality, and success. She gave up the work, not from choice, but because home obligations demanded her time. After years of rest from active work, though with unabated interest in the cause, Mrs. Clason went home to her reward, a loved and honored woman.
Upon the resignation of Mrs. Clason, Mrs. E. D. Whitlock was chosen to the office, serving until 1896, when, on account of ill-health, she reluctantly relinquished the work, and Mrs. W. O. Semans was elected to the place.
During Mrs. Semans's term of office the work of the society made steady advance, being strengthened each year numerically and financially, and when, in 1906, after ten years of faithful service, she had to give up the charge, it was to the great regret of all. Like Mrs. Clason, after a few years of rest she was called to a higher service above, and will be remembered here by a multi- tude of friends.
Mrs. P. C. Dukes, of Findlay, succeeded Mrs. Semans, and has given seven years of efficient service.
For thirty-five years in the history of the Branch the Conference secretary served also as Conference treasurer. But the burden became too heavy for one, and in 1910 the office of Conference treasurer was created, and Mrs. LeClare Dukes, of Findlay, was elected to the place, faithfully discharging the duties of the office for two years, when she was succeeded by Mrs. C. F. Latchow, also of Findlay.
Early in the history of the society the young womanhood of the Church became interested, and also the children. At the meet- ing of the General Executive Committee held in Columbus in the spring of 1880 action was taken providing for the Young Woman's Society, and also for Children's Bands, although prior to this sev- eral young women's societies had existed-one at Monnett Hall, Delaware, and one at Wesleyan College, Cincinnati. These, how- ever, were organized as auxiliaries and not as provided for later in the constitution of the Young Woman's Society. There were also a number of Children's Bands before being voted as such. One of these came within my recollection. Under the supervision of
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W. F. M. S. of the Central Ohio Conference.
Mrs. Dr. McCabe, two little girls at William Street, Delaware- Kitty McCabe and Mary Semans-"organized," calling themselves the "Kitty-Mary Society." They were enthusiastic in their work, holding formal monthly meetings, carrying out regular programs, and reading such literature as "The Life of Mrs. Ann Judson."
They sent their mite each quarter, along with that of the great host of older folk, receiving encomiums of admiration and praise. These girls in later years have filled parsonage homes with great honor, Kitty McCabe as the wife of Dr. A. M. Courtenay, of the Ohio Conference, and Mary Semans in an Episcopal rectory, as the wife of Dr. Philip Phillips, Jr. No doubt they have reaped abundant fruit from the good seed so early sown.
Under the supervision of Mrs. C. R. Havighurst, the work of the young people of the Conference made steady advance. Mrs. Havighurst was the first elected Conference superintendent of this work, and served from 1908 to 1911, when she was elected to the Branch secretaryship of Children's Work.
Mrs. F. W. Stanton was then made secretary of Young People's Work, and for two years energetically and efficiently looked after its interests, when, by reason of her husband's ill-health, necessi- tating a change of climate, she went to the far West, and another took her place.
The literature of the society has been a large factor in the advancement of the work. The Woman's Missionary Friend-in the early history of the society called The Heathen Woman's Friend -is co-existent with the society, and has been self-supporting from its beginning. The Junior Missionary Friend has done for the children what the Woman's Missionary Friend has done for the women.
Such text-books as "Via Christi," "China's New Day," "The Young China Hunters" (by Dr. Bean), "Christ the Light of the World" (by Robert Speer), with other good works, have served to disseminate missionary information and to stimulate to action the women of the Church.
The Thank-offering each year has been devoted to some special object in the foreign field-some memorial building, school, or college most needing help.
In the brief space allotted for this brief history it will be im- possible to record all that has been accomplished by the Woman's
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
Foreign Missionary Society of the Central Ohio Conference through all these years of missionary activity. The greatest compliment to the work is the steady, even-going advance it has made and the great results which have crowned efficient labors.
By reference to the Cincinnati Branch Annual of 1911-12, we find the Conference supporting thirty-four Bible women, seventy- five scholarships, three evangelistic teachers, two nurses in train- ing, and one hospital bed. It is contributing toward the itineraries of missionaries, towards day schools, village schools, training schools, taxes and rent. It is supporting five missionaries in the field, Bellefontaine District paying the salary of Miss Lulu Frey, Seoul, Korea; Defiance District, that of Dr. Emma Ernsberger, Seoul, Korea; Findlay District, Miss Luella Anderson, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia; Lima District, Miss Mariana Young, Nagasaki, Japan, and Toledo District, that of Dr. Loal Hoffman, North India.
Thirteen missionaries have gone to the field from this Confer- ence. Of these missionaries Mrs. R. L. Thomas, the present Branch secretary, writes: "Central Ohio Conference has some very fine workers in the field, among whom is Mariana Young, principal of our great college at Nagasaki, Japan. Luella Anderson, who began and developed the wonderful music department of our Kuala Lampur school, is another of our good missionaries. Miss Grace Davis is at the head of the high school in Lucknow, India, and is doing fine work there. Miss Elizabeth Rexroth was ap- pointed to the school work in Lucknow, and Miss Grace McClurg to Hinghua, China, in 1912."
Of Dr. Julia Donahuc, Mrs. Thomas says: "Miss Donahue did magnificent work. She was in Foochow during the awful plague, and broke down the second year. She worked day after day in that awful time, and won the love of all by her self-sacrificing life. She was not able to return to the field, and is practicing medicine in Burlington, Iowa."
Dr. Edwards, of Toledo, was another good missionary of the Central Ohio Conference. She organized and established the Training School for Nurses at our Seoul Hospital, and did a won- derful work. The first graduating class was under her supervision. In 1908, at the end of her first term of service, she was married to the Rev. Wm. Butler Harrison, of the Presbyterian mission in Korea.
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W. F. M. S. of the Central Ohio Conference.
Dr. Mary L. Dutton, of Lima, has also gone out within the last five years, and is at Basim, India. She found the people much interested in the prospect of having a lady physician amongst them, and the work is opening up marvelously.
Dr. Musser, the district superintendent, writes, "From the day it became known that a lady doctor was to come, the poor, secluded women of all castes, but mostly the high-caste Purdah ladies, have been eagerly watching and sending for Mrs. Dutton."
Another of the good missionaries of Central Ohio 'Conference is Dr. Mary Ketring. After having felt a call to service in the foreign mission field from her earliest recollection, she was ap- pointed to the Girls' Boarding School in Peking, China, early in February, 1888. Resigning her position in the public schools in Napoleon, Ohio, she left almost immediately for the field, in com- pany with Rev. H. H. Lowry, D. D., and his wife, who were re- turning from furlough. This school is the historic one founded by Miss Mary Q. Porter and her colleague, Miss Maria Brown, now known as the Mary Porter Gamewell School, in charge of Mrs. Charlotte M. Jewell. Miss Ketring labored there for four years, then was appointed to the principalship of the Woman's Training School in Tsunhua, one hundred miles east of Peking. She did also the city evangelistic work, and superintended the evangelistic work on three districts, traveling in a cart drawn by a mule, instead of going by train. These itinerating trips lasted from one to four or even six weeks, many of the visits being to villages and towns which had never before been visited by a white woman. On these trips she never saw a white face or spoke a word of English. The work was a blessed one and the Holy Spirit wrought great things. After nearly two years of this work, she came home on furlough. Her health not improving sufficiently to return to the field at the usual time, she took up the study of medicine, having faith that by the time the course was completed she would be able to return to the field, and according to her faith it was unto her. But the hospitals in North China being at that time supplied with women physicians, she was sent to Chungking, West China, to open a medical work and build a hospital for women and children, the funds for the land and building having been given by Mrs. Wm. A. Gamble, of Cincinnati, Ohio, for a memorial to her husband. In 1899, having obtained her diploma from the
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
Woman's Medical College of the New York Institute for Women and Children in New York City, and having done some important post-graduate work, she left for Chungking, two thousand miles inland. The hospital was begun at once. Dr. Ketring's previous knowledge of the language at Peking enabled her to at once open medical work in a ward and dispensary kindly offered her by the General Board Hospital. A successful operation upon an enormous tumor, and another, restoring sight to an influential old lady after years of total blindness from cataract, gave the people an almost superstitious confidence in foreign women physicians. At the time of the Boxer troubles all missionaries were ordered by the United States Government to go to Shanghai for safety. While away from her work, the doctor was called to America to her mother's as- sistance. But in 1905 the way opened for her return to Chungking, and she went with great rejoicing to her beloved work. She found . the hospital, which had seemed a large building in the beginning, filled to overflowing and patients being turned away for want of room, with a daily attendance of from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five at the dispensary. The lame, the halt, the blind, the suffering gather from far and near, and a constant stream of healing of body, mind, and spirit flows forth from the hospital court. After five years and doing almost an incredible amount of work, the doctor's health made another furlough necessary, and she is now at home, praying for the time when her return will be possible.
The Bellefontaine Church esteems it a rare privilege to have sent two missionaries to the field, Dr. Belle J. Allen and Miss Lulu Frey. Both of these young women came to Bellefontaine in their childhood days, and both received their early education from the public schools at that city. Both are graduates of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Miss Allen of the class of 1883 and Miss Frey of 1892. Both were members of the Bellefontaine Methodist Episcopal Church and were among the most faithful of the flock. Each heard and heeded the call of the Spirit to the missionary field.
Miss Allen graduated from the Chicago Training School in 1888. The same year she was accepted by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society and sent by the Cincinnati Branch to Japan, where she served ten years in educational and evangelistic work, being stationed at Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Gonezawa, and Sen- dai. In 1898 she met with a very serious accident in Yokohama
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W. F. M. S. of the Central Ohio Conference.
Harbor, which necessitated her return to America a few months later. This was her first furlough in ten years. While endeavoring to regain her health she took a medical course, graduating from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1904. She served as interne in a hospital in Boston one year, and took a post-graduate medical course in Vienna. She fondly hoped all this time to return to her loved Japan for work, when able to take it up. But the Mrs. William Butler Memorial Hospital being - made possible through the gifts of friends, she was sent by the New England Branch to Baroda, where she took charge of the construction of this building and organized a most important work which, in its ministry to women and children, reached from villages of the out- casts to the palace.
Miss Frey, after finishing her work at Delaware, took a special course at the Moody Institute, graduating from there in 1893. Im- mediately following she was accepted by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society and sent by the Cincinnati Branch to Korea, where she has served the Scout Girls' School continuously from that time to the present, with the exception of three furloughs -- one in 1899, one in 1905-1906, and, following a critical major operation in the Seoul Hospital in 1912, she was given a year's rest at home.
Miss Frey has worked with an end in view and now, with her co-laborers, after twenty years of faithful service, reports "our plans approaching realization."
The work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Central Ohio Conference has stood the test and bears the approval of the whole Church. And, like the rainbow, which gives promise of a fair to-morrow, the uniting of the forces of the Central Ohio and the Cincinnati Conferences into the West Ohio Conference bespeaks a triumphant future in the great work of the evangeliza- tion of the world.
X.
Woman's Home Missionary Society OF THE CENTRAL OHIO CONFERENCE.
BY MRS. DELIA L. WILLIAMS.
THE Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- copal Church was organized in Cincinnati, in June, 1880, by the adoption of a constitution and by-laws providing that the general organization should consist of co-operating Annual Con- ference Home Missionary organizations in the Annual Conferences of the Church. Each Conference Society was to have its own officers and methods of work as far as consistent with the gen- eral interests of the whole. All these Conference organi- zations were to report to the General Board of Managers, consisting of a Board of Trustees and two repre- sentatives from each Con- ference.
MRS. DELIA LATHROP WILLIAMS.
All moneys raised for Home Missionary purposes were to be passed to the treasurer of the society, elected by this Board of Managers, which Board was also charged with the duty of appropriating and expending the funds.
The Central Ohio Conference was one of the first to be or- ganized under this constitution. A tentative organization was made at Lakeside. Ohio, in the summer of 1881, and the organization was completed during the session of the Annual Conference held at Marion. Ohio. the following September.
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W. H. M. S. of the Central Ohio Conference.
Mrs. Leroy A. Belt was the first president, Mrs. F. V. Chapman was the first recording secretary, and Mrs. W. G. Williams the first corresponding secretary and treasurer. Among the earliest charges organized in the Conference for Home Missionary work were Fremont, Bowling Green, Defiance, Marion, and William Street, Delaware.
The following are the names of the women who have served the Conference society in the offices indicated from its organization, August, 1881, until its union with that of the Cincinnati Conference at Xenia, Ohio, June 23, 1913, when the united societies took the name of "The West Ohio Conference Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church:"
Presidents-Mrs. L. A. Belt, Mrs. D. R. Cook, Mrs. Samuel Miller, Mrs. M. E. Case, Mrs. Ed Squire, Mrs. W. H. Scoles, Mrs. W. W. Winter, Mrs. W. H. C. Goode.
Corresponding Secretaries-Mrs. W. G. Williams, Mrs. Ed. Squire, Mrs. M. H. Davis, Mrs. D. M. Bailey.
Treasurers-Mrs. W. G. Williams, Mrs. J. M. Avann, Mrs. D. G. Strong, Mrs. Daniel Stecker, Mrs. W. H. C. Goode, Mrs. Frank J. Halliday, Mrs. John H. Freeman.
FINANCES.
The Central Ohio Conference has been, from its organization to the present, one of the most reliable Conferences financially of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. It has had the self- denying and enthusiastic support of a strong body of intelligent women, and the unreserved co-operation of the pastors and their wives. Many of the latter have been its most intelligent, conse- crated, and valued officers.
The accompanying table will indicate its growth in membership and contributions in ten-year periods :
Auxiliary. Young People.
Children. Contributions.
1882-1892
1,113
145
320
$18,286 79
1892-1902
2,260
198
412
32,694 44
1902-1912
3,739
940
711
84,248 22
1912-1913 (one year)
3,805
1,007
868 10,050 00
Early in the history of the society a provision was made for district associations, and very soon thereafter the six districts of
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
the Conference were organized with the appropriate officers. These associations have grown in importance as a community link between the auxiliary society in each pastoral charge and Conference or- ganization. The districts now number members as follows, and each paid the amount affixed for the year 1912-1913:
District.
Members.
Amount.
Bellefontaine
555
$1,355 60
Defiance
358
696 76
Delaware
989
2,110 45
Findlay
625
1,552 07
Lima
713
1,410 27
Toledo
565
1,439 50
Conference collections
114 82
3,805
$8,679 47
SPECIAL GIFTS.
As the years have passed the Conference Woman's Home Mis- sionary Society has been generously remembered by a large number of donors. Some of these gifts have been made to enterprises in special localities, and the Conference society has come to feel a deep interest in these enterprises.
As early as 1883 Mrs. Judge J. D. Cory, of Findlay, Ohio, gave $500, to which she added subsequent gifts, to build a chapel at Mt. Pleasant, Utah. This was called Thompson Chapel, for Mrs. Cory's sister, Mrs. Abram Thompson, of Delaware, Ohio.
In 1884 Mrs. L. B. Gurley, of Delaware, Ohio, gave $500 for the building of a teachers' home at Moroni, Utah, which was called Gurley Teachers' Home.
Mrs. Lizzie A. Copp, of Richwood, Ohio, has generously re- membered the society by annuity gifts. These have amounted to $3,000. They have been made in favor of the Spanish-American and Alaskan work of the society.
Mrs. Elizabeth Ritter, of Napoleon, Ohio, gave the first $1,000, in September, 1886, for the building at Athens, Tennessee, of the Elizabeth Ritter Home for White Girls, and for this gift she has the honor of its name. In 1899 a bequest to the same school was received from Mrs. Ann E. Jones, of Delaware, Ohio, given in memory of her son, John Wesley Jones, which netted $1,047.
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W. H. M. S. of the Central Ohio Conference.
In 1906 Mrs. Lucinda Frazer Horr, of Sidney, Ohio, made a gift of $6,500, other members of the family adding enough to make the sum nearly $7,000. This sum was used in building a fine annex to the Home, almost doubling its capacity. For this gift the new building took the name of Caroline C. Frazer Hall, in memory of Mrs. Horr's mother. Later still, Miss Emma Strayer, of DeGraff, Ohio, made a gift of $1,000 in memory of her mother, and a large number of smaller gifts, from $50 to $100, have been contributed to this Home by members of the Central Ohio Con- ference. Mrs. F. V. Chapman, of Toledo, Ohio, was its superin- tendent from its beginning, September, 1891, till October, 1911, when she was suddenly called to her reward. For many years previous to her death the Conference honored itself and her by paying her salary. Elizabeth Ritter Home has been one of the most influential and honored of the Home schools of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, and is especially endeared to the women of the Central Ohio Conference.
Another Home in which the Conference has had a special in- terest is the King Home for colored girls at Marshall, Texas. This Home, affiliated with Wiley University, under the care of the Freedmen's Aid Society, was named for the gift by bequest of Mrs. Jane King, of Norton, Ohio, which netted the society $2,285. This is one of our largest colored Home schools in the South, and has deserved the care and contributions of the Conference.
OFFICIAL RECOGNITION.
The Central Ohio Conference Woman's Home Missionary So- ciety has been especially honored with official recognition upon the Board of Management. The first president of the society was Mrs. R. B. Hayes, who served from the organization till October, 1899. Mrs. J. W. Mendenhall, of Delaware, Ohio, was the general treasurer from 1894, for two years, and was succeeded by Mrs. W. G. Williams, of Delaware, in 1896. She served until 1899, when she became general corresponding secretary, which office she now holds. Mrs. Lewis M. Albright, of Delaware, became a inem- ber of the Board of Trustees in 1895, which position she still holds. She has also been since 1889 secretary of one of the most important bureaus of the society.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
Mrs. L. D. McCabe, of Delaware, was chosen in 1883 as the first editor of the organ of the society, Woman's Home Missions, which office she held until her resignation in 1901. Mrs. Abram Thompson, of Delaware, was her associate as publisher, and upon her resignation she was succeeded by Mary Belle Evans. also of Delaware, who still serves as publisher.
Mrs. E. Y. King, of Richwood Ohio, was made by the Board of Managers in October, 1908, secretary of the Bureau of Supplies, which place she still holds.
These favors have been somewhat due to the proximity of the Central Ohio Conference to Cincinnati, the headquarters of the Society.
After thirty-two years of harmonious co-operation, the Con- ference Woman's Home Missionary Society became a component part of a larger and more effective Conference society, with all the women of the Conference determined that their end of the widely extended scales should show no light weight of service or self-sacrifice. They joyfully accepted their share of the new re- sponsibilities, and humbly but confidently joined ranks with the women of the Cincinnati Conference to help to bring in a reign of righteousness all over the earth.
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XI. Benevolent and Philanthropic Interests.
AT the time the Central Ohio Conference was organized there were no extensive missionary societies. The Church had scarcely any great dream of world-wide missions, no luring visions of far-away lands.
Mission territory was confined chiefly to the home field, and that, too, at a time in the history of the country when the floods of immigration were not pouring in upon our shores every year as they are at present. As the country in the Middle West, and later, farther on towards the setting sun, began to fill up with emigrants from the Eastern States, and to increase with the sons and daughters of established homes and communities, there arose the necessity for extending Christian sympathy and help to those who had not been reached by the agencies of the gospel, so that very much of the effort put forth and the money given for mis- sionary endeavor was directed towards settlements and neighbor- hoods among which the itinerant had not appeared and the Church had not been planted.
The Parent Board of Foreign Missions, as it was then called, was the chief and almost the only organization or agency for the collection and distribution of money for the spread of the gospel and the extension of the Church.
The word "foreign" was really a misnomer, for the missions formed and the fields to be cultivated apart from the population were chiefly those known as Indian missions.
The Central Ohio Conference of 1857 reported between $3,500 and $4,000 for missionary work, and this sum was applied chiefly to objects within the Conference itself-in aid of individual Churches and among the Indians within its borders.
Methodism threescore years ago was necessarily rural in the fields cultivated and in the work it did. The call of Home Missions had not been raised; and, indeed, in the sense in which the phrase is used to-day, there were no conditions to evoke it.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
The State of Ohio in the year 1856 contained a population a little below 2,000,000; to-day the population is considerably above 4,000,000.
The largest city in the State at that time was Cincinnati, with a population of 110,000; the next was Cleveland. with a population of about 70,000; tlien came Columbus, having about 25,000; then Toledo, numbering about 15,000, and Dayton, with a population of 15,000.
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