Margaret Flory (1913-2009)
The Frontier Internship in Mission program came from the creative, entrepreneurial mind of Margaret Flory, the Presbyterian official in charge of Student Work, but who considered herself a missionary to all of the world’s students. A fireball of energy with a keen sense of Christian commitment and sensitivity to what students were thinking and feeling, she sought out opportunities to turn individuals into bridge people across the world’s chasms of difference. FIM was only one of her many programs that did that in different ways. This photo was taken in 2009. In 2010, shortly before her death, she hosted a luncheon where the preliminary results of the FIM Project were presented. She was 95 by then and blind from macular degeneration, but her mind was as sharp as ever. She remembered every FI, where they came from, and where they had served. She was thrilled to find out what had happened to the many she had lost touch with.