EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; ELLA SHEPPARD P/15

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Ellas Sheppard. She lived from 1851 - 11915. Ella's skill as a pianist immediately drew the attention of Fisk treasurer and musician George White, who appointed her his choir's accomampanist and assistant choral director as he prepared his troupe for a tour of the North. Though frail and sickly, Ella valiantly remained with the troupe for seven years. She accompanied the choir on piano, oversaw many of their rehearsals, conducted the Jubilees from her position among the singers on stage, and continued to collect and transcribe spirituals until the troupe's repertoire numbered over a hundred.                                                                                                                                     

When in 1878, an exhausted and exasperated White finally resigned as director, Ella stood in for him for the troupe's last months. She joined White's subsequent troupe of Jubilees but retired from Jubilee work when he disbanded the group in 1882.

Ella built a house for her mother and half sister in Nashville, and married one of the most prominent black ministers in the US, Rev. George Washington Moore. They lived at first in Washington D.C., agitating against the saloons in their neighbourhood until it had been transformed into one of the most desirable areas in the city.

Returning to Frisk, she trained and inspired generations of Jubilees, and by the time of her death in Nashville in 1915, Ella had become in intellect, in spirit, and in musical attainment one of the truly gifted women of the world.

Rrad Part Sixteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; ELLA SHEPPHARD P/14

                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Ella Shepphard. She lived from 1851 - 1915. Her father was Simon Sheppard and her mother was Sarah Sheppard. Ella was born enslaved on Andrew Jackson's plantation. Her father had purchased his freedom by hiring himself out as a Nashville, Tenessee liveryman and hack driver. 

When Ella was a little girl, her enslaved mother threatened to drown Ella and herself if their owners refused to permit her husband to purchase her and her daughter Ella's freedom.But an elder prevented her, predicting that "the Lord would have need of the child." 

Sarah's owners refused to release her mother, but allowed Ella to go with her father (Ella's mother was promised that her freedom could be purchased by her husband Simon, but the slave mistress reneged on the agreement. "Sarah shall never belong to Simon," she declared. "She is mine and she shall die mine. Let Simon get another wife." He later married another enslaved woman for whom he paid $1,300 to free her) and fearful he and his daughter might be re-enslaved, Simon fled penniless to Cinicinnati, Ohio.

A German woman taught Ella to play piano. Ella also managed to persuade an imminent white vocal teacher to give her twelve lessons provided she keep them a secret and arrive and depart at night by the back door. After her father's death from cholera, Ella supported herself, her stepmother and half-sister Sosa by teaching at a school for former enslaved persons. Managing to save about six dollars in five months, she proceeded to Nashville in 1868 to enroll at the Fisk Free Coloured School.

Read Part Fifteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; LUCY FARROW P/13

                                                             Read Part One HERE                                                                                                                                 

In this post I will contine to focus on a woman named Lucy Fellow.She lived from 1851 - 1922. Lucy was mightily used in the city of Portsmouth. She saw about two hundred come to Christ and most of these received the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Lucy continued on and went to Liberia, Africa. There she worked among the Kru people with Julia Hutchins. She even ministered to the king of the Kru. Reports came back of Liberians becoming saved and baptised in God's Spirit.

Upon leaving Liberia in 1907, Lucy returned to the United States. She held one revival meeting in Littleton, North Carolina. Soon, in May 1908, Lucy was back at Azusa. Here she ministered from "a small faith cottage" at the back of the Mission, where people came to her for prayer.

Lucy later returned to Texas to live with her son. In 1911 she contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of sixty. Her life was full of God's power and the lives of many were touched by her ministry.

Read Part Fourteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; LUCY FARROW P/12

                                                              Read Part One HERE

In this post I will contine to focus on a woman named Lucy Farrow. She lived from 1851 - 1922. After having this wonderful spiritual experience of Holy Spirit Baptism, Lucy returned to Texas to pastor once again. Here she told Seymour and her congregation about her experience. She would later introduce Seymour to Parham. It is through Lucy's and Parham's association with Seymour that Seymour came to a Pentecostal understanding of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This teaching and experience would become a major feature of the Azusa Revival.

Lucy was fifty-six when she came to Azusa. While there, she laid hands on many, praying for them, and they would receive the same experience of Spirit baptism. At Azusa she did much teaching as well.

Lucy did not stay at Azusa indefinitely. She ministered throughout America, holding meetings in Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, and even in England. In Texas she worked with Parham's ministry one again. Lucy continued to lay hands on people and see them come into the experience of he baptism in the Holy Spirit. An early skeptic named Howard Goss heard Lucy speak at Azusa and became convinced of the experience. Later, as he saw Lucy ministering to others and they experienced this baptism, he said that "his heart became hungry again for another manifestation of Gd... So I went forward that she might place her hands upon me. When she did, the Spirit of God again struck me like a bolt of lightning; the power of God surged through my body, and I again began speaking in tongues."

Read Part Thirteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; LUCY FARROW P/11

                                                              Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on an African-American woman named Lucy Farrow, She lived from 1851- 1911. Lucy was born in Norfolk, Virginia. She was the niece of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In 1871, she lived in Mississippy and had a son. By 1890, she was living in Houston, Texas and was a widow.

In Houston Lucy pastored a small mission-church. Her connections to Azusa began with her association with William Seymour. He attended her church in Houston and was given leadership for a season while Lucy moved east to Kansas.

Lucy left for Kansas to work in the Bible College of early Pentecostal leader, Charles Fox Parham. At Parham's school she heard his teaching on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit being evidenced by speaking in tongues. In one of Parham's meetings, Lucy had this spiritual experience of being baptised in he Spirit and she spoke with other tongues. She is the first recorded black person to have had this experience.

Read Part Twelve HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF Of 1800; SOPHIA STURGE P/10

                                                                    Read Part One HERE 

In this blog I will focus on a woman named Sophia Sturge. She lived from 1849 -1936. Sophia was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. Her parents were Quaker abolitionists Joseph Sturge and his second wife Hannah Sturge Dickinson. After an education at home, Sophia devoted her life to philantrophy and to attempts at reform.

 Sophia was a president of the Young British Women's Temperance Association and a member of the Women's Liberal Social Council. She was a strong supporter of suffragism. 

As a supporter of the Irish Home Rule Movement and appalled by the poverty in Ireland, Sophia moved to Connemara in 1888, where, with financial assistant from some Quakers, she set up a basket-making industry in the village of Letterfrack, which had already become a place of residence for several other Quakers.

Sophia taught the young girls the art of basket-making leading to a self-sustaining enterprise that sold many of its products in Britain. She lived there for seven years but then returned to England for health reasons.

By 1900, pacifism had become the main focus of Sophie's activities and she attended several international peace conferences. She was involved in the setting up of the "Friends Emergency Committee" during the First World War. After the war Sophie went to the Netherlands where she helped German children affected by the war. She also spoke at many British schools.

Sophia died in 1936.

Read Part Eleven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; IDA GAGE P/9

          

                                                       Read Part One Here

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Ida Gage She lived from 1849 - 1915. As she embarks on her ministry in the Free Methodist Church she appears in mumerous local news papers from 1897 - 1906. 

From 1907 - 1908, Ida appears in the Michigan Conference Minutes as a licensed conference evangelist. This is an important distinction. The Free Methodist Discipline outlines the difference between "an evangelist" and "a conference evangelist," noting that "a conference evangelist" went through the same training as local pastors (men) and was approved by the annual conference. Evangelists were approved by the quarterly, implying that they were under more intensive supervision than those licensed and reviewed on a yearly basis.

 The fact that Ida's conference license was allowed to transfer from Ohio to Michigan shows the level of respect she held within the denomination. That is further illustrated when the Michigan Conference appoints her to the Jasper and Seneca Circuit for a year.

From the period of 1910- 1911 Ida is not listed in any Free Methodist Conference. However, this is not surprising since her ministry changed when she moved to California. Instead of preaching on a circuit she largely worked as a nurse but she did renew her conference evangelist license with the Southern California Conference in 1912 so perhaps she combined the two occupations.

Ida died in 1915.

Read Part Ten HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; IDA GAGE P/8

                                                       Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Ida Gage. She lived from 1849 - 1921.  Like B.T. Roberts, Ida believed that the Free Methodist Church could not support racial equality and ignore gender inequality. Her debate at the 1890 Conference shows her spirit and fire as she defends her right to minister after Olin Owen, a delegate from the Dudquehanna Conference, speaks up in opposition to women in leadership.

Ida noted that she felt called to preach and the opposition to ordaining women is very much like the opposition to free slaves. She noted as well that she has gone to areas where no pastor was within twenty miles. While there people would beg her to baptise  their babies, but she didn't have the authority. The only reason for this was "the bureaucracy of the denomination."

Ida clearly had a gift of oratory and was an eloquent and passionate public speaker. While much of her personal history is missing, we know that by 1880 she has moved to Michigan, where she preached and lived with relatives. 

Read Part Nine HERE