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Pamla, Charles (1834-1917)

South African Revival Leader And Translator For William Taylor

Charles Pamla was born of Christian parents at Butterworth in the Transkei in 1834. His father, Mdingazwe, was the son of Zulu, a prominent chief of the Amabambo tribe in Natal. Charles Pamla was converted to Christianity early in life and was baptized by Rev. W. H. Garner. Soon he experienced a strong desire to study the Bible and preach the Christian gospel. Pamla had a brief scholastic education at a Dutch school in Nyara. It is said that while herding sheep Pamla would preach to the trees so as to give himself practice in public speaking.

When his family moved from Peddie to Keiskamahoek, near King William’s Town, Charles Pamla became a class leader and lay preacher. Here he was to come under the influence of Robert Lamplough, who was stationed at Annshaw. His main task in the early years of his ministry was to act as interpreter for Lam plough. The art of interpreting was far from easy but Pamla excelled to the point of being an “unpaid evangelist” in this office. Pamla labored for many years as an unpaid evangelist, mainly among Chief Kama’s people in the Annshaw circuit. Pamla was eventually allowed to candidate for the Methodist ministry in 1866.

When Methodist Episcopal preacher and traveling evangelist William Taylor arrived at King William’s Town in 1866 as part of his evangelistic tour of South Africa, Lamplough and Pamla walked twenty-four miles with two other colleagues from Annshaw to “warm themselves at the fire” in King William’s Town. It was here that Lamplough introduced Pamla to William Taylor. While Taylor preached to whites, Pamla devoted several days preaching to blacks. Pamla seems to have engendered more responses to Christianity than Taylor, in King William’s Town at least.

Taylor was obviously impressed with the results of Pamla’ preaching. He had longed to preach to blacks but, as we have seen, he could make little advance through an interpreter. Now with the help of Charles Pamla, confidence in successfully preaching through an interpreter was restored. The scene was now set for a series of revivals South African Methodism had never before experienced. Together, Taylor and Pamla preached throughout South Africa. When Taylor moved to Natal, he concentrated his preaching among the white congregations. He could spare little time for the black population, and Pamla preached among them by himself. He preached at Maritzburg, Edendale, Durban, Verulam, and elsewhere.

In Durban, Charles Pamla and William Taylor parted company. Taylor and his family sailed for London in the aftermath of an “ever-memorable” year in South Africa. Pamla returned home, and on the way he stopped at Port Elizabeth to lead another manifestation of the revival. Pamla again proved himself to be the principal agent in sustaining the momentum of religious conversions among blacks and in ensuring that the revivals with Taylor were not a temporary excitement.

Adapted from Daryl M. Balia, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Charles Pamla and the Taylor Revival in South Africa.” Methodist History 30 no. 2 (January 1992): 78-90.

Hall, Anna E. (1870-1964)

Long-Time African-American Missionary Educator In Liberia

Anna E. Hall was born near Bainbridge, Georgia on March 1st, 1870. She lived a religiously oriented childhood with her mother, a seamstress, and expressed the desire to serve as a missionary while a student at Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed the normal course on May 12, 1892. Her religious training was delayed due to family responsibilities and lack of financial resources: instead she taught school for one year in Ormund, Florida. She then returned to Jesup, Georgia where she served as the Principal of Jesup School for four years.

With the generosity of influential people who were made aware of her desire to be a missionary, she entered the New England Deaconess Training School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1899 and graduated May 22, 1901. She was then appointed as a Deaconess to work with the Lloyd Street Methodist Church (now the Central United Methodist Church) in Atlanta, Georgia. This work lasted five years, 1901-1906.

Her missionary work was realized in December 1906, when she travelled to Monrovia, Liberia to teach the Kroo (Kru) people. In her second year she was asked to go to the southern part of the Republic – Garraway – where she became the successor to the Director of the Julia A. Stewart Memorial Girls Home and School, Garraway Mission. She worked there twenty-four years, and was comfortable with all people – presidents, high church officials, college presidents- but chose to identify with those of a more humble status.

She retired from her work in Liberia and moved back to Atlanta, Georgia, where she became a familiar figure visiting hospitals, prisons, and homes of sick and troubled people. Affectionately named “Mama Hall” by members of both the Atlanta and Liberia communities where she lived, she was the recipient of many honors. One of these honors was the naming of a new church at the Liberia Garraway Mission in 1952: the Anna E. Hall Methodist Church. Another was the naming of new married student dorms at the Gammon Theological Seminary in 1952: the Anna E. Hall Dormitory for Married Students. She was additionally the recipient of a significant honor from the Republic of Liberia where she was knighted during the inaugural ceremonies of president-elect William V.S. Tubman, and vice president-elect William Tolbert in 1956.

She lived in Atlanta until her death in March 6, 1964.

Photo of “Anna E. Hall” (2016). Anna E. Hall Collection, Photographs. Image 100.
http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/hallimg/100
The Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

Moots, Cornelia Chillson (1843-1929)

Cornelia Chillson Moots or “Mother Moots” was one of the four pioneer WFMS missionaries to the Philippines. A native of Bay City, Michigan, Moots was an evangelist for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), an organization with recognized links to holiness piety. Moots took over duties at the Soldier’s Institute in Manila not long after Mrs. Prautch left on account of ill health. Despite the tragic loss of her own adopted son Charlie in a Manila hospital, who died from injuries sustained in battle prior to her arrival, Mother Moots found comfort ministering to her new “sons,” a job assigned to her by Bishop Thoburn as the so-called “pacification” of the islands by the United States dragged on.

In addition to engaging in WCTU activities, she visited the sick, wounded, and dying in hospitals in and around Manila. On March 18, 1900, Bishop Warne designated her as class leader of the first Methodist class meeting organized in Manila consisting of soldier boys who were awakened at the YMCA union meetings where Warne preached. Meeting at the Soldier’s Institute and at the mission home, the class provided opportunities for Moots to kneel with “homesick and sin-sick soldiers” as they “wept and prayed for deliverance from grief, and from the gambling habit, from the drink appetite, and other sins.” In addition to class meetings, she also led separate prayer meetings.

Moots did not work alone, however, as she received help, albeit from an unexpected reinforcement. Much of her WCTU evangelistic activities were done in collaboration with Genevieve Cutler, who was affectionately called “Sister Ruth” by the soldiers she minister to. Cutler was a missionary sent by the Peniel Mission, a holiness rescue mission based in Los Angeles. On September 1900, Sister Ruth, who was superintendent of the evangelistic department of a small band of WCTU women in the city, conducted a series of “gospel meetings” or “gospel temperance meetings” for a few weeks at the Soldier’s Institute, and at “Semen’s Bethel.” Bethel was a similar hall for sailors in the nearby district of Binondo converted from a recently closed liquor saloon. Moots, who was on hand to distribute temperance pledge cards and pray with those who responded to the message, described the meetings at Bethel as occasions for the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”

When Cutler was recalled back to Los Angeles a month later, Moots and Nellie Moody, another newly arrived Peniel missionary, carried on with the meetings at Bethel. In July 1901, the two traveled to San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, a recently occupied town sixty miles north of Manila, to minister to the soldiers of the Twenty-Second Infantry Regiment who were garrisoned there. They conducted a series of evangelistic meetings in a vacant room located in the army hospital and at the surgeon’s home. The success of the meetings was demonstrated when the soldiers paid for the construction of a bamboo “Gospel Peniel Hall” built by Filipino prisoners. Moots later dedicated the building on October 20, 1901, and preached the inaugural sermon.

In the absence of any MEC work in San Isidro, Moots also launched a separate work with some of the locals. They would later form the pioneering membership of the MEC in the province a year later

Adapted, with the author’s permission, from Luther Jeremiah Oconer, Spirit-Filled Protestantism: Holiness-Pentecostal Revivals and the Making of Filipino Methodist Identity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2017), 40-6.

Hoover, Theressa

First African-American Woman Mission Executive; Mentor To Many Women

Theressa Hoover was the first and she made sure she was not the last.

The first African-American woman to become a top staff executive for The United Methodist Church was a mentor to many young women, promoted the leadership of laywomen and engineered a secure future for the women’s organization of the denomination during a period of tumultuous change.

Hoover led the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, the corporate body of United Methodist Women, for 22 years, from 1968 to 1990.

“She had a presence that could be larger than life, but she also had a presence that could be as soft and gentle as a dove,” said Andris Salter, a UMW executive who witnessed how Hoover ministered to women struggling with issues such as physical and sexual abuse.

One of five children born to James C. Hoover and Rissie Vaughn, Hoover’s options might have seemed limited in the segregated South, especially after her mother died when she was a small child. But her father, a city hospital orderly, taught her to be fearless and gave her the confidence to do what she needed to do.

A 1946 graduate of Philander Smith College, she helped the Little Rock Methodist Council, a coalition of 19 black and white Methodist congregations, convert a former turkey farm into Camp Aldersgate, dedicated in 1947 as a camp for African-American youth and a racially integrated training center.

The national stage

Segregation remained firmly entrenched in the Methodist Church when Hoover joined the staff of the Woman’s Division of Christian Service, part of the Board of Missions, in 1948 as a field worker for the denomination’s Central Jurisdiction.

Traveling across the United States in Jim Crow days as an African-American woman meant “she had a job for the Women’s Division that required sacrifices that none of the other women had to think about,” said Peggy Billings, who became “fast friends” with Hoover in the 1960s as they worked together on racial justice issues.

Even later, at the board offices in New York, “it was not an easy time for a black person to agree to come on an all-white staff or to take on an organization that had historically been white,” she noted.

The year that Hoover was elected the Women’s Division top executive — 1968 — was a pivotal year as the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Barbara Campbell, who was Hoover’s “second in command” at the Women’s Division for many years, noted that Hoover had to rebuild the division staff practically from scratch from the merger to the massive reorganization for the new United Methodist Church in 1972.

As with other reorganizations over the years, such tumult endangered the membership and institutional relationships of United Methodist Women. “There were always those who thought they could handle our money better than we could,” she added.

Hoover’s “outstanding leadership” on church union for the Methodist Church was crucial in an era when it was difficult for both a woman and a person of color to command influence and power, said Betty Thompson, communications director for the Board of Global Ministries during that time.

Possessed with an active prayer life and deep grounding in the faith and history of Methodism, Hoover was not afraid to “speak truth to power,” but did so with grace, compassion and respect, women close to her recounted.

“She didn’t suffer fools gladly, but neither did she take herself (too) seriously,” Campbell said.

Administratively, she was “a great boss,” Billings said, who supported and appreciated competent staff and, Campbell added, always operated under the assumption that others should know the mechanics of running the division.

She made United Methodist Women a strong organization by emphasizing the need to understand its membership, mission and intent and by “training other women to take your place, do the work and share the message when you no longer do it,” said Salter, who was hired by Hoover in 1982.

In her private life during the New York years, she was an avid reader, frequent theatregoer and skilled Southern cook, relying upon a wide circle of friends that she called “her community” for support.

Mentor and promoter of laywomen

Hoover took young women of all races under her wing, nurturing leadership skills that would have an impact on the denomination for years to come.

When M. Garlinda Burton first met Hoover while covering a Women’s Division meeting for United Methodist News Service, she was amazed to see an African-American woman have so much influence in the church.

Hoover encouraged Burton, who recently retired as top executive of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women, to see herself as a leader. She also learned from Hoover that women like herself — laywomen, women of color, women from small towns — “are the legs the church stands on and that position deserves respect.”

For the Rev. Maxine Allen, now on staff with the Arkansas Annual (regional) Conference, Hoover was one of three women, along with Bishop Leontine T.C. Kelly and Euba Harris Winton, “who laid the legacy where, particularly, black women could see themselves outside of the local church environment.”

Allen went back to school at the age of 40 and then on to seminary. A UMW scholarship helped her graduate without debt.

Hoover’s niece, Melba Smith, who started work with the Women’s Division at the Church Center for the United Nations in 1970, also felt fortunate for the guidance provided by her aunt. “I was privileged to have been a member of her staff for so many years,” Smith said. “She was one of my greatest mentors.”

Jan Love, who first met Hoover when she was 17, followed her lead in encouraging The United Methodist Church to bring its gifts and “considerable weight” to the table in ecumenical matters and served with her as United Methodist representatives on the World Council of Churches Central Committee.

Love also was the Women’s Division’s top executive from 2004 to 2006 before becoming dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

In recognition of her mentoring prowess, the Women’s Division created the annual Theressa Hoover Community Service and Global Citizenship award when she retired in 1990.

Back home to Arkansas

Hoover was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2000, but a more visible sign of her zeal for mission can be found at the Theressa Hoover United Methodist Church in Little Rock, thought to be one of the denomination’s first local churches named for a laywoman.

Hoover “had played a big part” in the life of the Rev. William H. Robinson, Jr., who chartered the congregation in December 1981 and served as its pastor for 32 years.

Over the years, Theressa Hoover United Methodist Church has built 70 new homes in the community, supported projects for women, children and youth and started a certified faith-based licensed substance-abuse program.

“I think that she spelled out mission work for this denomination,” Robinson said. “She tackled strategic problems in a sensitive way to get it done and she certainly trained and provided leadership and gave inspiration to many minority women, especially, who followed in her footsteps.

“She was just a jewel.”

This story written by Linda Bloom for the United Methodist News Service. See https://www.iaumc.org/newsdetail/443518

Welch, Herbert (1862-1969)

Mission Bishop And Founder Of Relief Agency

Herbert Welch (1862-1969), the longest serving Methodist bishop, played multiple roles of lasting significance in the mission and social history of the church. His accomplishments included:

Originator and first executive (1940 to 1948) of what is today the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the disaster response and development agency of the denomination,
An organizer of the Methodist Federation for Social Service (1907), within whose work lie the roots of the Methodist Social Creed, one of the first church endorsements of fair labor laws and labor organizing,
Mission bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church for Japan and Korea from 1916-1928,
Participant in the formation of the popular Affirmation of Faith known as “The Korean Creed.”

Welch was born on November 7, 1862, in New York City. Educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and Oxford University in England, he was ordained deacon by the New York Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1892 and elder in 1894. He and his wife, Adelaide Frances McGee (they married in 1890), would have two daughters. After pastoral service in his conference, Welch was elected President of Ohio Wesleyan University in 1905.

While at the college, he and four other Methodist clergymen organized the Methodist Federation for Social Service (today, Methodist Federation for Social Action), and he served as its first president. The Methodist Social Creed, of which Welch as a primary author, became the model for Methodist and Protestant ecumenical statements of support for labor organizing and opposition to child labor, setting a precedent for churches taking stands on social issues. The Methodist Social Creed influenced a similar statement by the Federal Council of Churches as well as US government labor policy under President Theodore Roosevelt.

Welch was elected to the episcopacy in 1916 and assigned to the Japan and Korea area, where he served until 1928. While in Asia, Welch contributed to the formation of the Affirmation of Faith called “The Korean Creed,” which would become one of the affirmations used in Methodist worship around the world.

Welch served the Pittsburgh Episcopal Area from 1928 to 1932, when he was reassigned for four years to Asia, notably to the Shanghai Area in China. He retired in 1936. He would be called out of retirement to preside over the Boston Episcopal Area from 1938 to 1940. His experience and contacts in China prepared him for his role in forming what was initially named the Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief (MCOR). The agency was created by the 1940 General Conference in response to a proposal presented by the Methodist Committee for China Relief by Bishop Welch, the committee chair, then 78 and already twice retired. He would serve for another eight years as the director of MCOR, which took as its motto:

Giving by Christians for the needy, without distinction for race, creed, or color.

“We bear witness to Christ by serving all in the name of Christ,” said the bishop, who raised $8 million during his tenure at MCOR, initially for war refugees in Asia, for Europe after World War II, for Palestine after 1947, and then internationally. In 1942, a proposal from MCOR to the board of directors would recognize that war relief would have to be more than just providing necessities to refugees and displaced populations. In addition to relief, the proposal suggested that MCOR should be involved in reconstruction, rehabilitation, repatriation of refugees and prisoners of war, restoration of churches and civil operations, and reconciliation—an effort to restore peace and goodwill.

Herbert Welch died in New York City at the age of 106.

Narrative by Elliott Wright, from information drawn from:

Website of the General Commission on Archives and History
New World Outlook Magazine
The Christian Advocate
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Herbert%20George%20Welch&item_type=topic
http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p267401coll36/id/9550

Springer, John (1863-1963)

Founder Of Methodism In The Congo

Although Methodist missionaries ventured into the Belgian Congo before John Springer, notably Bishop William Taylor with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the late 1800s, Springer’s enterprising evangelistic explorations in the early 20^th century are credited with the founding of the present-day United Methodist Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

John Springer was born in Wisconsin in 1863, the son and grandson of Methodist Episcopal preachers. After graduating from Northwestern University and receiving his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1901, Springer set sail for Africa to begin work with the Methodist Episcopal Church as it reconstituted its Africa missions. All that was left of Bishop William Taylor’s work in the Congo and Zambia, where 55 missionaries had served in the 1880s and 90s, were two mission stations. Taylor’s successor, Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, closed one of those missions and transferred the other to Swedish missionaries. He decided to concentrate his efforts in the viable stations of Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia instead. Rhodesia, present-day Zimbabwe, is where a young John Springer began work at Old Umtali (Mutare today) in 1901. That same year Helen Emily Chapman Rassmusen arrived, returning to mission service after the deaths of her husband and son, likely from illnesses contracted during their previous mission assignments in the Congo with William Taylor’s earlier outreach missions.

By 1905, John Springer had become mission superintendent of Old Umtali and he and Helen were married. Both John and Helen were skilled at getting into the villages—Helen was an excellent linguist—meeting, talking with, and gaining the confidence of the indigenous people and leaders. In 1905, they set out riding donkeys on a two-week trip to see what was north of Old Umtali, accompanied by 10 African porters. They held William Taylor’s dream in their hearts and determined that they should follow his original plan into the Congo to open mission stations. They mounted a second expedition in 1906 for more extensive exploration to Murewa and along the Zambezi River valley to Mozambique, taking two months and covering close to 1,000 miles. Late in 1906, Hartzell decided to send the Springers home to the United States for itineration—but the Springers chose to go with 50 African porters by way of a long western route that took more than six months to complete. That trip, during which Springer nearly lost his life, enabled them to reach the Belgian Congo border—1,500-miles. They finally made it to New York in October of 1907.

Bishop Hartzell believed opening work in the Congo would be an over extension for his missionaries and he did not know how he would pay for more personnel to bring the Springers’ dream to fruition. More than once Springer sparred with his New York mission secretary, Adna Leonard, who declared that divine inspiration, was not a good excuse for John to ignore his bishop and strike out on his own. But John and Helen were also gifted speakers, so when they returned from the United States, they came with sufficient funds from itineration to support the new work, and Bishop Hartzell relented. With the funds in hand, who was to say the plan wasn’t God’s will?

Rather than returning to Old Umtali in 1910, the Springers began to establish work in the Congo. With additional missionaries, they had opened mission stations in Kananga, Kambove, and Lubumbashi by 1917. In all of this work, the stations were staffed by a few missionaries and many Congolese workers, as they established training schools along the way. A good number of their early workers were Congolese people who had been sold into slavery and taken to Angola, where they encountered Methodist workers. The enslaved workers bought their own emancipation and returned home to the Congo to live and work near the mission stations.

Springer continued to be a somewhat controversial figure for the MEC. Bishop Eben Johnson, who took over for Bishop Hartzell, had to move the Springers back to Zimbabwe from 1921 to 1924, where John served as mission superintendent for the Mutambara station, because Springer’s own missionaries in the Congo were upset with another one of his impromptu acquisition attempts—Mulungwishi. But in 1924 the Springers returned to the Congo and John resumed his quest for Mulungwishi land, which he finally acquired in 1937, with plans to build a Congo Institute. This was later named the Springer Institute in 1941.

In 1936, John Springer was elected to serve as bishop for the Africa missions. Under his watch, the missions of the southern Congo, many of which he had opened for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the missions of the northern Congo, established by southern Methodists in Wembo Nyama in the 1920s under Bishop Walter Lambuth, were brought together under one united church. He served as the area’s bishop until 1944, when he retired. But he continued to travel back and forth between the US and the Congo to the age of 90. After Helen’s death in 1946, John married a second Helen, Helen Newton Everett Springer, a missionary serving in the Congo. Bishop Springer died in the Congo in 1963 and was buried in Mulungwishi.

Christie R. House, editor, New World Outlook magazine.

Sources: History of Methodist Missions, Vol 4, Twentieth-Century Perspectives, J. Tremayne Copplestone, Board of Global Ministries, New York, 1973.

The Rhodesian Study Circle http://www.rhodesianstudycircle.org.uk/category/explore/missions/page/2/

History’s Lessons for Methodism in Mission, by Dana Robert, New World Outlook May-June 1999, pp. 5-9

Photo: Bishop John McKendree Springer, MEC, Africa Mission Photograph Album – Portraits #04 Page 088

Ririe, Ed (?? – 2017)

Longtime UMVIM Volunteer

Beginning in 1993, Ed Ririe of Bartlesville served on 27 United Methodist volunteer mission teams. He loved helping people as an expression of his faith. He was serving on a team in southern Oklahoma, helping flood survivors, when he died suddenly Jan. 24, 2017.

Born in Tulsa, Ed grew up attending a United Methodist church at Redondo Beach, California —and the Smothers Brothers were among his peers in the youth group, said daughter Karen Distefano, who is Oklahoma Conference’s secretary of Global Ministries. While a single 20-something serving in the Air Force, he went to church every Sunday.

Home base for the family became Bartlesville, OK, where Ed and wife Alice Ririe joined Oak Park UMC in the 1960s. As a parent in Bartlesville, “he always made sure us girls were in church,” Karen said.

She recalled growing up alongside the children of Vietnamese refugees whom her parents welcomed in 1975 in Bartlesville. They still keep in touch. “My sister, Katherine, and I learned a lot from him. We learned compassion for people in need, regardless of skin color, place of origin, religion, or race. We were strengthened in our faith.”

In addition to his support for Vietnamese refugees, Ririe worked with indigenous peoples in Guatemala in the 1990s and supported missionaries from China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Karen. She adds, “He helped a young Peruvian woman attend a Methodist seminary in her country. He worked alongside other Oklahomans in times of disaster.”

A craft idea for Oak Park Church’s holiday bazaar led Ed and Alice to open a candle factory now known internationally as Keepsake Candles. Ed, who had a long career as an engineer, created the original candles. He liked to say the church bazaar project “got out of hand.”

Gary Holland, Oak Park’s treasurer, shared, “He was the tile cutter for our pretty well-known tiling team in the Oklahoma Conference. We have tiled churches in Dominican Republic and Honduras together, worked flooded homes, worked tornado areas, and construction in Mexico, Guatemala, and Chile. He was always willing to go and help those in need whether it be close by or even internationally.”

Fellow volunteer Kevin Walker, who is on the Oklahoma Conference Disaster Response Ministry staff and was on the Maysville trip with Ririe when he died, adds, “He died wearing a VIM denim shirt.”

Jean Abshire, Ed’s sister, was the team leader. James Bond took her place, and the group continued its mission. Their attitude was “Ed would have wanted us to complete the job,” Walker said.

Adapted from Holly McCray, “Father’s mission legacy continues,” https://www.okumc.org/newsdetail/father-s-mission-legacy-continues-7586537

Valdez, Rosa

Brave Servant To Immigrant Children In Tampa

Rosa Valdez was a brave Hispanic woman moved by the plight of immigrant children arriving in her hometown of Tampa, Florida, in the late 19th century when segregation was the law of the land. The children were banned from public schools, so Ms. Valdez used her own funds and, with help from benefactors, established a small school for the children in west Tampa. At the same time, Eliza Wolff, who wintered in Tampa, was urging the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church South to form a mission school for immigrants living in east Tampa.

The small mission begun as a result of the determination of these two women grew and adapted to the community’s changing needs over the years. Today, it is called Cornerstone Family Ministries, a United Methodist Women-related national mission institution in Tampa.

BRAVE: As United Methodist Women celebrates 150 years of women in mission, we’re honoring traits that make our members and our programs so vital. Ms. Valdez’s bravery helped shape who we are today.

Please view more at United Methodist Women, currently known as United Women in Faith (formerly known as United Methodist Women). United Women in Faith is the official organization for women within The United Methodist Church.

Coombs, Lucinda L. (1849-1919)

First Female Medical Missionary To China

Coombs graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and was sent to China by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Possibly the first female medical missionary of any denomination in that country, she arrived in Peking (Beijing) in September 1873; two years later she opened the first hospital for women in China. In November 1877, she married fellow Methodist missionary Andrew Stritmatter and moved to his station at Kiukiang (Jiujiang), Kiangsi (Jiangxi) Province. There she continued to work as a medical doctor, although her marriage automatically removed her from the roll of WFMS missionaries.

In 1880, her husband, suffering from tuberculosis, was forced to retire from the mission field. The Stritmatters and their two small sons arrived in San Francisco in October and began traveling east to his family home in Ohio. However, he could travel no further than Denver, where he died on November 22. Little is known about “Lucy’s” later life. She evidently moved on to Ohio with her children. She did not remarry, and died in Columbus, Ohio.

By Susan E. Warrick, Independent Scholar in United Methodist Missions History, Madison, New Jersey, USA

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of The Gale Group; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved. It is taken, with permission, from the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity: https://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/coombs-lucinda

Sources:

There is no complete biography of Lucinda Coombs. Some information about her can be gleaned from Wade Crawford Barclay, History of Methodist Missions; vol. 3 (1949).

Gamewell, Francis (Frank) Dunlap (1857-1950)

Defender Of The Methodist Mission During The Boxer Rebellion

Gamewell received world acclaim for organizing the defense of the Methodist Mission and the British Legation in Peking (Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Born in South Carolina, he earned three degrees from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but was also trained in engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at Cornell University, New York. He received honorary degrees from Syracuse and Columbia Universities.

He began his missionary service under the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1881 as principal of a boys’ school in Peking. In 1884, he was appointed superintendent of the West China mission. Three years later he was forced out of Chungking (Chongqing), Szechwan (Sichuan) Province, by anti-foreign riots, and returned to Peking to teach physics and chemistry as acting president at the future Yenching University. During the 56 days of the Boxer siege, he was “chief of staff” in charge of fortifications and the administration of vital services for some 3,500 people. Subsequently he served for 12 years as executive secretary of the Educational Association of China and then as an associate general secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Board of Foreign Missions in New York City.

His first wife, Mary Porter Gamewell (1848-1906), was the fourth appointee of the Methodist Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society and the first to go to China. In 1872, she opened one of the pioneer schools for girls (insisting on unbound feet). After her marriage to Frank Gamewell she showed remarkable courage in resisting mob attacks on the West China mission, as well as later, in Peking, where she ministered to refugees and wounded Legation defenders. Gamewell’s second wife, Mary Ninde Gamewell (1858-1947), was a daughter of Bishop William X. Ninde, a former president of Garrett Biblical Institute. She served with her husband for 21 years and wrote a number of books on mission work in China.

By Creighton Lacy, Emeritus Professor of World Christianity, Duke University Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina, USA