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McKinney, Ernestine Henderson (1906-??)
Leader Against Racial Discrimination
Ernestine Henderson McKinney of Little Rock, Arkansas, was in decision-making, leadership positions before, during, and after the history-making unions of the branches of this church that now make up United Methodism. She worked for human rights and against racial discrimination when it was not popular to do so, receiving threatening calls and mail as well as hundreds of letters backing her stand. When, in the 1940s, Little Rock (and the South in general) offered no place where the races could meet together, she and a few others asked the Woman’s Division to establish Aldersgate Camp. Little Rock received national and world attention in 1957 when the governor defied the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate the schools, and President of the United States sent the National Guard to enforce the law. The governor closed the public schools rather than comply. Ernestine was one of twenty-five women instrumental in reopening the schools—integrated—the next year. Ernestine was president of Little Rock Conference Woman’s Society, 1954-1956. She was a member of the Woman’s Division, 1956-1968, serving as vice-president and chair of the Section of Program and Education for Christian Mission, 1964-1968.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Strother, Emma Wilson (1900-??)
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 a project of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society (Methodist Episcopal Church). She held numerous positions in the church, including Central Jurisdiction Secretary of Children’s Work; Delaware Conference vice president, recording secretary and Secretary of Children’s Work; member of the Woman’s Division and chair of its Committee on Missionary Education of Children; member of the Board of Missions’ Inter-Board Committee on Missionary Education, and a vice-president of the National Division. She traveled with Church Women United to Africa in 1966. In 1979 she was part of the 24-member Asia Travel Team, sponsored by the Women’s Division. In addition, she traveled and studied independently in India. In 1982, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference recognized her for long and continuous service. She was one of the authors of To a Higher Glory, the Growth and Development of Black Women Organized for Mission in the Methodist Church 1940-1968.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Crosby, Fanny (1820-1915)
Hymn Writer, Urban Missionary
While known today primarily as a prolific hymn writer, Fanny Crosby (aka Fanny Van Alstyne and Frances Jane Crosby) was also an influential figure in the “rescue mission” movement of the late 19th century, notably in New York City where she lived most of her adult life. Ecumenical in spirit, she belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church but spent some years taking part in Baptist and Presbyterian congregations. Her hymns were influenced by enthusiastic Methodist singing.
Blind from childhood, Ms. Crosby wrote the words to more than 8,000 hymns. Favorites include “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “I Am Thine O Lord, “To God Be the Glory,” and “Blessed Assurance” (co-written with Phoebe Knapp). The United Methodist Hymnal has seven hymns by her.
She was born in Putnam County, New York, lost her sight when only six weeks old, and attended the New York Institution for the Blind in New York City from ages 15 to 23. She taught at the school from 1847. Her ability to write verse was expressed in hymns as well as poems for civic occasions and newspapers. Her first book of poems, “The Blind Girl and Other Poems,” was published in 1844. Ms. Crosby became a public celebrity, personally acquainted with U.S. presidents and other notables of the day. She was the first women to formally speak in the chamber of the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. when she read a poem there. The year 1864 saw her first published hymn. George F. Root and Ira Sanky would become prominent musical collaborators
Ms. Crosby married a fellow teacher, Alexander Van Alstyne, in March,1858, who was also blind. Their only child, a daughter, died soon after birth. The marriage did not flourish, and the couple lived apart from 1880. She lived at various locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan across the years and was often on the edge of poverty. Publishers paid poorly for hymn texts.
Along with her friend Phoebe Palmer, the founder of the Methodist holiness movement, Ms. Crosby helped to promote the “rescue mission” (also called “city” or “gospel” mission) movement, an international, non-denominational phenomenon aimed largely at lifting the poor, often migrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some institutions she championed, such as the Bowery Mission in New York City, founded in 1879, still operate today.
In 1907, Ms. Crosby moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut to care for a sick friend. She died there in 1915 at the age of 95. Her commitment to mission went with her to Bridgeport and lasted for many decades thereafter. She left funds in her will to start a home for homeless men in the Connecticut city, a bequest enlarged by fund-raising by the women of the First Methodist Church and the local federation of churches. The Fanny Crosby Memorial Home for the Aged operated from 1925 to 1966, when it was merged into the Bridgeport Rescue Mission.
Narrative by Elliott Wright, adapting material from numerous sources, including: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fanny-Crosby; https://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bcrosby5.html; http://www.umc.org/who-we-are/fanny-crosby-legendary-methodist-hymn-writer and http://www.fampeople.com/cat-fanny-crosby_6
Sears, Kathryne Jeannette Bieri (1904-98)
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 of Foreign Missions to an overseas post. She was sent to teach math at Woodstock School in India, representing Methodists in an ecumenical venture. She was Field Secretary for the Woman’s Division (1944-46) and Missionary Personnel Secretary for the Board of Missions, The Methodist Church (1947-52). Kathryne traveled nationwide unifying the Woman’s Society of Christian Service. She helped recruit the fifty young people for the J-3 program (three years of mission service in Japan) after World War II. After her marriage, she became the first woman president of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Council of Churches, the first woman member of the Board of Trustees at Taylor University (Upland, Indiana), and the first woman vice-president of the Iowa Council of Churches. A director of the Woman’s/Women’s Division from 1964-1972, she was vice-president and chair of its Section of Finance (1968-72). A “mission pioneer,” she visited and supported mission work in 69 countries.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Faust, Aletha Knapp (1904-1998)
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 in Nigeria, Aletha and her husband learned the language, shared in putting it in writing and in starting schools. She assisted in writing school books and in translating portions of Scripture. She was the first to encourage Pero women to become Christian. She taught them to read and write, and organized the first Pero Christian Women’s Fellowship. Similar fellowships were soon started in villages and among other tribes, and a young Girls’ Brigade was begun. Work among the Pero women and their response to the Christian message became the basis of her book, These Things Have Happened, published in 1945. For the last five years in Nigeria, Aletha was on the staff of the Women’s Department of the Theological College, a cooperative seminary for pastors and their wives.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Martin, Edith (1900-1979)
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 writing materials for school and church. She translated the whole Bible into Otetela, one of the languages of the people of Zaire. Soon after her arrival, Edith was given the name of “Mama Yema,” which means kindness, mercy, love. Frequently the recipient of honors and awards in Africa and in the United States, she accepted them all with words of humility learned in Zaire, “Lusaka, Lusaka, Kete L’Ote” (“Thank you, thank you, with dirt on my head”). Her furlough time was spent in study in schools in Belgium, France, and the United States including Schools of Christian Mission. After retirement, she returned to her hometown and continued to witness to churches and groups throughout her jurisdiction. She established a scholarship for young people in Africa. A beautifully human person, an inspiration to all, she always wanted others to know Christ as she did.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Walker, Marion M.
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 dormitory in Sta. Lucia, Capan, Tarlac, where Aeta students could stay while studying, enabling tribal communities to educate their children and youth. Ms. Walker served as district and conference missionary promoting children and youth work and supervising deaconesses in the conference. She directed various nurture programs for the districts in Central Luzon. She came as a young and beautiful missionary, and expended her life in mission, benefitting children, youth, women, deaconesses, and Aeta tribal communities in Central Luzon. After she retired, she continued to live and serve in the Philippines. Her former students had become teachers, pastors, and deaconesses, and community leaders. She chose to be buried in Patling.
Taken from Methodism in the Philippines: A Century of Faith and Vision, ed. by Bishop Jose Gamboa, Jr., Gamaliel T. de Armas, Jr., Roela Victoria Rivera, and Sharon Paz C. Hechanova. (Manila: Philippines Central Conference of The United Methodist Church, 2003).
Donaldson, Louise Sackett (1897-1982)
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 Selma and Birmingham, Alabama. Louise attended Dow Chemical stockholders’ meetings to protest the production of napalm, visited missions in India, Korea, Japan, and Mexico at her own expense, supported the education of two Korean girls, and was involved in numerous prisoner-assistance programs in the United States and other countries. She helped consolidate the Ladies’ Aid, Woman’s Home Missionary Society, and Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society into the Woman’s Society of Christian Service of the Detroit Conference, held numerous conference offices; was president of Michigan United Church Women (later, CWU); served on CWU’s National Board of Managers; and was a member of the Michigan State’s Commission on Human Rights and Fair Employment Commission. When Louise Donaldson could no longer take part in such organizations herself, she urged others to carry on.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Tillman, Sadie Wilson (1895-1974)
Prominent US Leader Of Women’s Mission

By the 1960s, Sadie Wilson Tillman, who was born in Tennessee, and grew up a member of a small rural church near Lewisburg, had become one of the nation’s most prominent church women. From 1924 to 1927, she was Director of Christian Education at Laura Haygood Normal School, in Soochow, China, and from 1927 to 1934, Associate Secretary of Missionary Education of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. As a member of the Woman’s Division of Christian Service, she was vice-president and chair of the Department of Christian Social Relations from 1952 to 1956. During this time, the first Charter of Racial Policies was adopted. As president of the Woman’s Division from 1956 to 1964, Mrs. Tillman presided over the Division’s efforts to implement the Charter and she was a prime mover in the Division’s decision to fund the building of a Church Center at the United Nations. The chapel at the Church Center was named the Sadie Tillman Chapel. She was also president of the Tennessee Conference Woman’s Society (1950-53), a delegate to the World Council of Churches’ Assembly in 1961, and a member of its Central Committee (1961-1968), vice-president of the National Council of Churches (1960-63), and a vice president of the Board of Directors of Scarritt College in Nashville. The History and Archive Room at Scarritt is named in her honor.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
Darby, Dr. Hawthorne (1894-1944)
Unselfish Servant And Medical Missionary To The Philippines
Dr. Hawthorne Darby served as a medial missionary in the Philippines for the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. Born in Colfax, Indiana, she graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in 1914, and from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia in 1923. She served internships at the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and the Lying-In Hospital in Chicago. In 1925 she sailed for the Philippines and joined the staff of the Mary Johnston Hospital, serving also as medical advisor for church mission boards in Manila. At the time of Pearl Harbor in 1941, she was working at the Emmanuel Hospital in Manila. In February 1944, Dr. Darby was imprisoned at Fort Santiago for aiding American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas. She was later moved to Bilibid prison where, with others, three of whom were missionaries, she was executed. A plaque at the Cosmopolitan Church in Manila marks the resting place of her ashes. Dr. Hawthorne Darby is remembered in the Philippines for her unselfish service and her refusal to compromise Christian principles.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.