Women of the West
Created by Dorothy Emerson and Christine Jaronski
Unitarian Universalist Women’s Heritage Society Worship Service
Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, June 28, 1999, Salt Lake City, Utah
Chalice Lighting/Opening Words
What I endured on
the plains only those that crossed in ‘59 know. There was no
station until we got to within 80 miles of Denver—no road a
good part of the way. I was weak and feeble, having nearly shaken
myself to death with fever and ague in Kansas. .. . I had to cook for
all our party and I did not find it a pleasure. Sometimes the wind
would blow furiously and it is not very pleasant to cook over a camp
fire in a wind storm when that fire is made of buffalo chips and
every gust of wind would carry them over the barren prairie. By the
time I would get them gathered together, another puff (and so on,
lasting three or four days).
Every Sunday we
rested, if rested it could be called. The men would go hunting, while
I would cook, wash and iron, which kept me employed all day. My baby
was teething and was sick all the way across, which with my other
work, made it hard for me.
By Augusta Louise
Pierce Tabor (1833-1895), From Augusta Tabor: A Pioneering Woman,
by Betty Moynihan, Cordillera Press, 1988
Check in: How
are things for you today?
Topic/Activity
A notable factor of
many of the historic Unitarian and Universalist women in the west is
that of having left where they grew up and moving to the west. This
involved developing new connections and communities. While moving
today is certainly physically different than generations ago, leaving
the known for a new area still takes courage, patience and a sense of
adventure.
What has moving from
one location to another meant for you? Have you been able to find
Unitarian Universalist connections in your new location?
If you have not moved
from the area where you grew up, how have you been able to make an
impact over years where you are?
How are people “from
away” welcomed in your Unitarian Universalist community? What
impact do people who move into your community have on your spiritual
community?
What connections that
women can make in your congregation?
Closing Words:
I am not sure that
anything whatever could relieve or comfort me under my present very
depressing condition of health, but if anything could it would be a
congenial female companion with whom I could chat and be merry—
sympathize and advise. The being alone all day from eight in the
morning to seven at night ensures a too great seriousness. There is
nothing to call out any other faculties of mind, fancy, imagination,
affection, mirthfulness, nothing in fact to kindle or excite a worthy
spirit life. . . . Every good woman needs a companion of her own sex,
no matter how numerous or valuable her male acquaintances, no matter
how close the union between herself and her husband; if she have a
genial, loving nature, the want of a female friend is felt as a sad
void.
By Georgiana
Bruce Kirby (1818-1887
From Georgiana:
Feminist Reformer of the West, Santa Cruz County Historical
Trust, 1987
Likes and Wishes:
How was this session for you?
Background: Women of
the West
Rev. Mary C.
Billings. A life-long Universalist born in Connecticut, Mary’s
third husband was the first Texas State Missionary sent there to
bring the good news of Universalism to Texas. Mary was well-known to
Universalists through her contributions to Ladies’
Repository, Rose of Sharon, Lily of the Valley, and other
denominational publications. She was licensed to preach in 1886 and
ordained in 1892.
Ada Choate Burpee
Bowles (1836-1928). Universalist minister who was born in
Massachusetts, but came to California with her minister-husband to
spread the good news of Universalism on the west coast. While in San
Francisco, she edited a regular newspaper column on women’s
suffrage and was president of the San Francisco Woman’s
Suffrage Society.
Mary Phelps Austin
Halley (1784-1846) Born in Connecticut. After her minister-
husband died at sea, she and her young son moved to Texas to be near
her relatives. In the early 1830s, she wrote a book, Texas:
Observations Historical, Geographical and Descriptive, that was
thought to have greatly encouraged settlers to move to Texas and is
still considered one of the most reliable sources of information on
Texas in that era.
Georgiana Bruce
Kirby (1818-1887) Born in difficult circumstances in England, she
eventually found work in Boston, Massachusetts, educated herself. For
three years she participated in the socialist utopian community of
Brook Farm where she met Eliza Farnham, with whom Georgiana worked on
prison reform. Later the two traveled west to share a 200-acre farm
Eliza had inherited until both women married. Georgiana lived in
Santa Cruz, California and continued her ongoing commitment to social
reform, and her faith in the strength and support of women.
Augusta Louise
Pierce Tabor (1833-1895) Born in Maine, she went to Kansas
Territory shortly after her marriage. Augusta founded the Pioneer
Ladies Aid Society, an organization that offered friendship and
financial assistance to women who had accompanied their men into
mining camps and were later left alone by death, desertion, or
divorce. Augusta was active in the Unitarian Church in Denver.
Helen Marie Fiske
Hunt Jackson (1830-1855) Born in Massachusetts, she was pushed
her into writing as a career by the death of her husband and infant
son and the support of several Unitarian ministers. Because of
chronic illness, she moved to Colorado in her late 30s. There she
became outraged at the plight of indigenous people and published a
document called A Century of Dishonor and a novel, Ramona,
about the tottering Spanish society and the Indians victimized by
gringo usurpers.
Sarah Pratt Carr
(1850-1935) Born in Maine, her family moved to California when
she was an infant. Because of her father’s job building
railroads, Sarah grew up in frontier settlements and saw the
treatment of Chinese workers and the conflicts between settlers and
Indians. Under the guidance of the Oakland minister, the Rev. Charles
Wendte, Sarah was ordained and organized and served Unitarian
churches in the San Joaquin Valley. After she moved to Seattle, she
wrote the libretto for an opera for which her daughter, Mary Carr
Moore, composed the music. Narcissa, or The Cost of Empire
told the story of the conquest of the West, with equal sympathy for
the missionaries, immigrant settlers, and indigenous people caught in
the clash of cultures.
Florence Ellen
Kollock Crooker (1848-1925) Born in a log house in Wisconsin, she
grew up reading Universalist journals and discussing them with her
father. Upon the advice of Mary Livermore, she attended St. Lawrence
University and was ordained in 1877. She served a congregations all
over the country for over 40 years, helping them to develop strong
leadership. As President of the Women’s Ministerial Conference,
she was often asked to explain why women should be ministers. She
worked throughout her life to pave the way for women to follow their
true callings.
Mila Frances Tupper
Maynard (1864-1926) Born in Iowa, was nurtured and fostered in
her ministry by her sister, the Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, who was
first ordained as a Universalist and then became a Unitarian. Mila
served congregations in Indiana and Michigan, where she met her
husband. Together they served churches in Nevada and Utah. During
their ministry in Salt Lake City, the First Unitarian Church grew to
over 350 members. Much of Mila’s later career was devoted to
writing and lecturing in behalf of social and economic justice. She
eventually became part of the Christian Socialist movement.
Aurelia Isabel Henry
Reinhardt (1877-1948) A native Californian, she become president
of Mills College. Through nearly 30 years of leadership, she built
the school into a women’s liberal arts college for women with a
worldwide reputation. She was a lay preacher at the Unitarian Church
in Oakland and served on the first Commission on Appraisal, helping
to heal a major denominational split with her essay on worship. She
lectured and wrote extensively on education for women and on peace,
suffrage, and other issues of the day.
Eleanor Silver
Dowding Keeping (1903-1991) Known as Silver, she was born in
England and came to Western Canada at the age of six. Although
partially deaf from the age of 12, she managed to earn a Master of
Science degree in botany and become an instructor and lecturer in
that subject at the University of Alberta. She completed her PhD in
mycology. For 20 years she investigated medically important fungi and
worked to interest physicians and public health workers in the
importance of medical mycology. Silver and her husband were founding
members of the Unitarian Church in Edmonton. For many years, bits of
prose and poetry appeared in the church newsletter under the title
“Silverisms.”
Billie Rose King
Wright (1922-1987) Born in Mississippi, she was ordained in
Anchorage, Alaska, in 1971. She and her minister-husband went as a
research team for the National Endowment for the Humanities, to study
value formation among indigenous people one hundred miles north of
the Arctic Circle. They returned to their 12 by 12 foot cabin on a
mountain lake again and again over the next two decades and
established a wilderness retreat in the Sierra Ancha Mountains in
Arizona. Billie Wright’s personal journey of self-reliance and
inner harmony led her to the wilderness of Alaska and Arizona.
Malvina Reynolds
(1900-1978) One of the most outspoken songwriters on the crucial
topics of the 1960s and 70s, the native Californian turned to
songwriting after earning a PhD in English Literature and having a
full career as a mother and newspaperwoman. Active in the Berkeley
Unitarian Fellowship, she was at first too shy to perform her own
songs and gave them to fellow Unitarian Pete Seeger and others to
sing. Finally, in her 60s, she began to perform publicly, explaining
that her cracked and crotchety voice was to be expected—”with
all the fallout in the atmosphere.”.
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