Episcopal Church Women: The First Hundred Years part 2
Episcopal Church Women: The First Hundred Years part 2
This story is excerpted from Episcopal Church Women of Minnesota: The First Hundred Years, published in 1982 and reprinted in 2020.
The Genesis of Episcopal Church Women of Minnesota
According to accounts in early yearbooks, there were twenty-five ladies at the first meeting. The meeting got under way after addresses by the Reverend Mr. Gilbert, Miss Cornelia Jay (a national officer), and Bishop Whipple. First, the ladies elected officers. Next they voted to meet in Faribault in 1883 on the same day as the Diocesan Council, and, last, they asked the officers to prepare a constitution and distribute it to every parish. Incidentally, women’s organizations at Christ Church and St. Paul’s (St. Paul) and Gethsemane and St. Mark’s (Minneapolis) underwrote its publication by contributing a dollar apiece.
The attendance at the next two meetings in Faribault was sparse. Because of this and on advice of Bishop Whipple, the Auxiliary voted to make several changes: (1) to move the meeting to Minneapolis or St. Paul so that more people could come, (2) to set the date in the early fall “before the season’s work commences,” and (3) to reduce the number of officers to two—a president and a secretary-treasurer.
For a number of years, form and content of the annual meeting were unvaried. Each meeting began with a service of Holy Communion (the Bishop presiding) followed by addresses by the Bishop and visiting ecclesiastics. After a two-hour recess (luncheon), the ladies held their meeting which was also attended by—and sometimes chaired by—clergy. This really, though, was the ladies’ hour, for the time was given to speeches by such women as Miss Julia Emery, secretary of the National Woman’s Auxiliary or her sister Mrs. Twing, who had originally been secretary but who had given up the job when she married, or Miss Sybil Carter who taught lace-making to Indian women. Then, letters from missionaries and requests for Supply were read. The latter may sound trivial in 1982 but not in 1882—for missionaries depended on Auxiliaries for Supply, also known as Box Work. (Boxes held clothing, bedding, non-prescription drugs, and food-stuff.) Whether under the name of Supply or Box Work, this was a major undertaking for more than half a century.
Parish groups took requests, filled them, and, then, at the next annual meeting, reported on the dollar value of the Box sent. For instance, according to the handwritten minutes of the Minnesota Auxiliary, the ladies of St. Paul’s (St. Paul), one September, sent Sarah Wilkinson, daughter of a missionary, a school outfit valued at $40.00 and the next month dispatched to the Reverend Mr. Gunn of Worthington a box, a barrel, and a bale of goods valued at $455.65.
In 1885, the fall meeting was held at Gethsemane (Minneapolis) and the Auxiliary made the pages of the Minnesota Missionary twice. First, the Bishop in his column noted that he had addressed the ladies, and second, the editor, in a column headed “Woman’s Auxiliary,” stated that one hundred thirty-five women had made that the largest meeting ever.
Contributions as well as attendance improved after the meeting was moved to the cities. In 1883, the value of Box Work and cash amounted to $1,123.40; by 1886, the figure had tripled. In recognition of this, Bishop Whipple proposed the following at the Diocesan Council in June 1888:
Resolved: That the thanks of this Council be extended to the ladies of the Minnesota Branch of the Woman’s Auxiliary for their grand work in the cause of missions as shown in their report in the Journal of the Diocese.
Monetary contributions, however, as compared to contributions in kind, were small. To improve cash flow, the annual meeting in 1887 voted to assess each local Auxiliary dues of one dollar and to ask each woman to take a Red Mite Box and drop two cents into it every Sunday morning. Six hundred were distributed.
When the Mite Boxes were gathered the following year, the ladies were astounded to discover that they had $562.64. Overcome by the opportunity for real generosity, they immediately voted to spend it: $100.00 for Sister Mary in Alabama! $300.00 for the Diocesan missionary! $50.00 for a cutter and robe for the Reverend Mr. Vetter! And the remainder plus the Offertory for the Reverend Mr. Gilfillan’s Indian school.
No sooner had the money been sent than the president, Mrs. C. B. Brunson, who was enjoying a twelve-year incumbency, had a letter from Miss Emery to the effect that Red Mite Box money was earmarked for headquarter’s distribution. After considerable parlaying, it was agreed that henceforth Minnesota could keep half the funds, since so many missions were located there, and that the rest should be divided between domestic and foreign. This arrangement lasted until 1892, when Bishop Edsall asked that the Diocese be given two-thirds.
The Minnesota Branch, at the end of the first decade (1892) seems to have decided that it was here to stay—and, thereafter, it began to extend its outreach, offering scholarships named for Bishops Whipple and Gilbert to Jane Bohlen’s (later St. Hilda’s) school in Wuchang, China and contributing to salaries of teachers and nurses in missions. It also improved administration and became involved in Church Periodical Club (CPC). These changes may, perhaps, be credited to a remarkable woman, Mrs. Stephan Baxter, who was president from 1899 to 1914.