Women, Past and Future

After surviving the challenge of raising three sons, I am thrilled to have two beautiful granddaughters. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed spoiling the lovely Madelyn Simone over the last five years, but, as the Bob Dylan prophetically teaches us, “the times, they are a-changin’.” Lauren’s maternity leave is over, so Thursday will be my first day with the delightful Elizabeth Holiday (age seven weeks). I do hope she lives up to my descriptor and doesn’t cry all day.

I’m sure Madelyn will offer me much expert assistance, although she’s already made it very clear that she doesn’t do diapers. But her help will be short-lived, as she’ll leave me high – and hopefully dry – my second week, on her way to kindergarten. How can that be?

Ah, what will the future be like for Madelyn and little Liza? Born female and American in the twenty-first century, it’s likely they will have few restrictions on what they want to be when they grow up (a question I struggle to answer even at age sixty).

It hasn’t always been so. That question was answered in a much narrower way for girls born one hundred or two hundred years ago, and it generally involved a life within the home. Those women who sought opportunities in the world around them did so at the risk of chastisement for overstepping their boundaries, sometimes forbidden to continue in the direction of their choosing. Most women accepted the norms of the day, but, as happens in today’s world, some pushed the envelope, finding success in a variety of endeavors.

We were reminded of this reality as Deleasa Randall-Griffiths portrayed the life of Carrie Chapman Catt during this year’s Ashland Chautauqua. Mrs. Catt determined early in  life that she was charged with a mission – obtaining the vote for women. I’d never heard of her before, so was glad to make her acquaintance through Randall-Griffiths’ compelling performance.

While Mrs. Catt functioned on the national stage, women here in Ashland were also stepping forward. Shirley Fulk Boyd has compiled an excellent resource in recognition of Ashland’s bicentennial entitled Ashland Women: 1815-2015. I loved reading the snippets of biography describing women such as Bella Osborn, the high school principal for many years, and Norah Abbe, superintendent of the early Samaritan Hospital. Some were noted for their achievement of a “first,” such as Helen Arnold, Ashland’s first probation officer; Sarah Wartman, admitted to the Ohio bar in 1893; Catherine Luther Sampsel, the first Ashlander with a piano; and Agnes Duice, Ashland’s first woman to wear pantalettes. Scandalous!

Many women worked tirelessly to make Ashland a better place for all. Clara Miller founded the YWCA and Mary Freer raised orphan children, while others fought against the scourge of alcohol, banding together in the Ladies Indignation Society (sounds like a great book title). Boyd notes that women like Caroline Jackson Kellogg stood nightly outside Ashland saloons to protest the easy flow of alcohol, while at the church, her husband Bolivar prayed for her success.

My favorite Ashland athlete from the book was Ann Petrovic, who starred for the Kenosha Comets in the women’s baseball league made famous by the film, A League of Her Own. Others, such as M. Lucille Sprague, joined the military. Sprague later provided leadership in our country’s Housing Administration.

Many who succeeded in business did so in partnership with their husbands, opening stores, medical practices, and even factories. After the death of her husband, Edna Garber ran the A.L. Garber Company from 1941-1969. I’m guessing her accomplishment gave courage to her daughter, Lucille Garber Ford, whose presence as the Grand Marshall of the fabulous Ashland bicentennial parade honored her own achievements within our community.

Regardless of circumstances, regardless of cultural barriers, Caroline and Clara, Ann and Bella, and Edna and Lucille remind us of what we can be, what we can achieve. Today, their courage reaches through the years to Madelyn and Elizabeth and to all the girls – and boys – of our community and our world. With continued encouragement and support, one day they too will say with Carrie Chapman Catt: “I have lived to realize the greatest dream of my life.”

Character, Courage and Commitment

 

Given the continued cold temperatures we’ve enjoying well into March, it’s appropriate that this month is National Frozen Foods Month, as well as Irish American Month, National Peanut Month, and Music in Our Schools Month, an observance near and dear to my heart.

Beyond my love for music, for many years my Salvation Army ministry, academic pursuits and writing interests have been interwoven with the lives of women, particularly those who have struggled in the face of poverty and prejudice. I’ve even been told that some within Salvation Army circles see me as “that radical woman,” a label I’m actually quite fond of, as radical means ‘from the root.’ So along with the focus on frozen foods and peanuts, as a radical woman I am especially glad to note that the month of March is also National Women’s History Month, celebrating women of character, courage, and commitment.

In my early academic endeavors in the 60s, the classroom textbooks seldom mentioned the role of women in the history of our country or our world, yet as I discovered their stories on the shelves of the local library, somehow I knew they belonged in those history texts as well. I doubt that I understood the long-lasting impact the accounts of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Dorothy Day would have on the trajectory of my life, but their biographies planted seeds of inspiration in the life of that young girl.

Times have changed, and since 1980, women from a variety of areas of achievement have been honored during this month of recognition, and this year’s list includes a pharmacologist and public health activist (Frances Oldham Kelsey), a congresswoman and Iraq War veteran (Tammy Duckworth) and Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, the slavery-born author and educator with a life mission to open the doors of higher education to children of color.

Chipeta, also on this year’s list, was a new name to me, a woman born into the Kiowa Apache in the 1840s and remembered as a peacemaker, wise elder, and advisor to other Indian chiefs. I also was awed by the many accomplishments of Roxcy O’Neal Bolton, who founded Florida’s first battered women’s shelter, convinced the airlines to offer maternity leave to its pregnant flight attendants (instead of firing them), and persuaded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to name hurricanes after both women and men.

Yet it isn’t only the historical achievements of women that are being honored during March. Since 2007, the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award has recognized women around the globe who have demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk.

This year, these women include Dr. Nasrin Oryakhil of Afghanistan, a prominent leader in the field of maternal health, and Beatrice Mtetwa, who is Zimbabwe’s most prominent human rights lawyer, fighting against injustice, defending press freedom, and upholding the rule of law. With the eyes of the world focused on the unrest in the Ukraine, I took special notice of Ruslana Lyzhychko, a civil society activist, human rights advocate and a leader of Ukraine‘s Maidan movement for democratic reform. Her bio notes that Lyzhychko’s “steadfast commitment to non-violent resistance and national unity helped channel a series of popular demonstrations into a national movement against government corruption and human rights abuses.”

Rudyard Kipling understands: “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” The stories of women add a rich texture to our understanding of history and of contemporary life. These are the stories I want to tell my granddaughter: stories of her fore-mothers who left all they knew to immigrate to the United States, stories of women in history who risked their lives for the rights she will take for granted, and stories of women around the world today who do what they have to do to feed their children and to change their world. I want the lovely Madelyn Simone to know women of character, courage and commitment in her community, her country, and her world. Let me tell you a story, Madelyn . . .

 

Have You Ever Seen a Lassie?

from the archives:
(first published in 2005)

            The Salvation Army in New York City recently celebrated the 125^th anniversary of the opening of the work in that great city.  It was a quite a party, and gave witness to the faithfulness of God in powerful ways.  But it raised again an issue that has troubled me for a number of years:  Why do we continue to refer to the seven brave women who came with Railton as the “seven hallelujah lassies”?  OK, in a pinch it may be a poetic phrase, but this is 2005, and whatever that word may have implied in 1880, my vivid imagination can only draw on my early childhood experience of Lassie, the adorable collie who kept getting lost. 

            These “lassies” are seven women who left their homes, their families, and everything that was familiar to cross the ocean in hopes of spreading the gospel.  They are seven women who have names.  Except that it’s difficult to find them.  Sixty minutes on the Internet could not locate their names.  They are unnamed in Soldier Saint, a biography of George Scott Railton, who accompanied them to New York, nor are they named in Red-Hot and Righteous, Diane Winston’s work on the urban religion of The Salvation Army.  Edward McKinley names one in Marching to Glory, Emma Westbrook, and describes the group as “stalwart women with great heart but little ability”(15).  Ouch! It finally took an e-mail to the archives in London to find them.  So for the record, in recognition of their personhood, the women who came to these shores in 1880 were Alice Coleman, Rachel Evans, Emma Elizabeth Florence Morris, Elizabeth Pearson, Clara Price, Annie Shaw, and Emma Westbrook

            It could be presumed that the lack of naming of these women has been simply a historical oversight, but if so, there have been too many historical oversights in the course of the history of our faith, beginning with the Scriptures.  Jephthah’s daughter (Judges 11), the woman who was a concubine (Judges 19), the woman at the well (John 4), the woman taken in adultery (John 8), the woman with an issue of blood (Matthew 9), and the woman in Simon’s house (Mark 14), are only a few of the many unnamed women in the Bible.

Unnamed women are not confined to the pages of history.  There are unnamed women in our contemporary world as well:  the female babies aborted daily in China simply because of their gender, the women being sold into prostitution and sexual slavery, and yes, the prostitutes on the street corners and the women who have been bumped off the welfare rolls in our own communities. 

            Yet these women do have names.  While they may not have been considered noteworthy enough to be recorded in the Scripture, each woman has a name.  Even women who are forced to abort their daughter give them a name.  And sex slaves, prostitutes, and poor women all have names as well.  As such, their names are known to the God of the universe, the shepherd who cares for his sheep.  As the chorus writer reminds us,

He cannot forget me, though trials beset me,

            Forever his promise shall stand,

            He cannot forget me, though trials beset me,

            My name’s on the palm of his hand.

                        SASB 125

 

            While I may not be able to change the historical records of The Salvation Army, I can remember that George did not come alone to the shores of the US, but was accompanied by Alice, Rachel, Emma, Elizabeth, Clara, Annie and Emma.  I can honor the memory of the unnamed women in the Scriptures by telling their stories.  And I can respect my brothers and sisters enough to speak their names, whether in the pew or the soup-line, as those who are created in the image of God and held close to his heart.  For the gift of a name bestows both identity and regard upon another, and I can choose to live in such a way that the names of God’s children are cherished and preserved.

 

O concubine of Ephraim,

No name is ever wholly forgotten.

Your mother’s lips brushed identity upon being.

A fragile vase, auctioned to the highest bidder,

Stripped naked of dignity.

Yet your name whispers gently.

I know you.

(see Judges 19)