RESEARCH DISCOVERS MANY WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP POSITIONS IN THE INTER-AMERICAN DIVISION - PART 1

  
Women’s History Month #3 2023

For the information about women in leadership in the Inter-American Division we are indebted to Daniel A. Mora who has done a lot of research in church archives, discovering the great impact women had in the early days of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission in Inter-America. 

From 1906 to the 1940s, women played a leading and decisive role in development of the Adventist organization in unknown and impressive dimensions. Women held the positions of treasurer and executive secretary at the mission and conference levels, on a par with men.

Lura Edna Collins Moore (1878-1938).
Shortly after completing the nursing course at Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, Lura Collins married Isaiah Moore, and together the newlyweds agreed to become missionaries to open the work in Havana, Cuba.[i] On May 9, 1904, the Moores arrived in the municipality of Marianao.[ii] In 1905 they organized the first Adventist church in Havana, and in 1906 the denomination established the Cuba Mission. Pastor Elwin Snyder became its president, while Lura C Moore was appointed as executive secretary and treasurer. [iii] In July 1909, the Moores returned to Iowa, where they engaged in medical missionary work. Lura’s other contributions included working to expand the Adventist message through The Life Boat magazine, for which she worked as a stenographer, and helping to establish Antillian College, the first Adventist college in Cuba.

Ethel Threadgold Nowlen (1873- 1908).
We know from a letter by Elder Francisco Westphal that Ethel arrived in Buenos Aires around 1893. He wrote: “A young English girl, Ethel Threadgold, was with us. She had learned the truth taught to her by Mr. and Mrs. Craig on her departure from England.” [iv] In 1896, Ethel married colporteur Clair A. Nowlen, who in 1891 was the first missionary to arrive in South America.[v] On April 5, 1907, the West Indian Union requested “the transfer of C. A. Nowlan [sic], to Central America, to engage in the work of colporteur.”[vi] The action was approved on May 19, and the Nowlens joined in the work with Elmer L. Cardey when they arrived on May 21 in Belize, where the Adventist work was established and the Central American Mission was functioning.[vii] From March 5 to 15, 1908, administrative meetings were held in Ruatan, now part of Honduras. William A. Spicer, the GC secretary, attended these meetings, where the mission was reorganized into a Central American Association.[viii] Ethel Nowlen was elected by the delegates as executive secretary and treasurer, while Pastor Cardey was elected president.[ix] In April, Marjorie Ruth, the 8-year-old daughter of the Nowlens, died of a fever in Belize.[x] Ethel had to bury her daughter alone, since her husband was with Cardey, opening the Adventist work in Guatemala, and the two men did not know anything about the tragedy.[xi] In July 1908, Ethel wrote a report in The Review and Herald to report on the challenges they were facing in Guatemala. She said, “The one comforting thought in it all is that the battle is not ours, but the Lord’s, and that though there are great walls to be encountered, his Word can cause them to fall, as did the walls of Jericho.”[xii] Months later, Ethel’s health deteriorated due to an intestinal problem. On December 10, the General Conference took an emergency vote to move her from Guatemala to Graysville Sanitarium in Tennessee.[xiii] Despite the efforts of medical staff, Ethel died on Dec. 29, 1908. Faced with the tragic news, GC leadership paid a tribute to her leadership as the executive secretary of the Central American Conference. Elder Cardey, president of that conference, expressed the impact of the news for Adventists in Central America.[xiv] Arthur Daniells named her in his May 3, 1909, address to the GC Session delegates. And William A. Spicer praised her work, recalling Ethel’s character in these words: “Regardless of the gifts that made her a valued secretary in the conference work, our sister had that bright, cheery temperament that is a blessing in itself to any field.”[xv]

Mary Anna Fitch (1884-1972).
In 1915, the General Conference voted to send Pastor D. D. and Mary Fitch as missionaries to the Puerto Rico Mission.[xvi] In 1916, Mary Fitch was appointed as secretary-treasurer of the mission, and William Steele became its president.[xvii] She held that position until 1919, when the GC called the Fitches to evangelize in Venezuela, where they worked until 1924.[xviii] In various publications and reports on the progress of the cause in Puerto Rico, Mary Fitch’s activities are noted as the “secretary-treasurer.”[xix] She also helped Adventist missionaries in Venezuela through the friendship she developed with Indalecia Gómez, the sister of dictator and caudillo Juan Vicente Gómez, who was president of Venezuela at the time. The government of Venezuela granted Adventists permission to perform their baptisms at the Chorro del Avila in Caracas, the country’s capital.[xx]

Ethel Maud Edmed (1890-1988).
Ethel Edmed came from an English family. She was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and she lived several years in England with her family.  In 1919, Ethel moved to England to work near her parents.[xxi] She worked as a preceptor and cook at Stanborough Missionary College.
 In 1925, Ethel was appointed executive secretary and treasurer of the Leeward Islands Mission, headquartered in Antigua.[xxii] During the Annual Council of the Inter-American Division in July 1925, held in the Canal Zone in Panama, Ethel attended as an officer of the mission and a member of the council.[xxiii] In some publications of the Inter-American Division Messenger, you can read the financial reports and the progress of the Adventist work in her field. In 1926, when the East Caribbean Union Conference was established, items on the agenda included the election of a secretary and treasurer. Ethel Edmed accepted the call, becoming the first woman in Adventist history to hold this position in a union conference. She held this post until September 1927, when she had to return to England to care for her father’s ailing wife.[xxiv] In 1934, after her father’s death, Ethel received a call to work at Helderberg College in South Africa.

Daniel A. Mora, 2022 Summer edition of Adventist Today Magazine 

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[i]  “News and Notes,” The Life Boat, vol. 7, no. 2 (February 1904), p. 61

[ii] Isaiah E. Moore – 8155,” U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907-1918

[iii] Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventists – 1906, p. 87.

[iv] 11 Francisco H. Westphal, Pionero en Sudamérica, translated by Silvia Scholtus de Roscher  (1997), pp. 31-32, 34.

[v] Eugenio Di Dionisio, “Nowlen, Clair A. (1865- 1961),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (2020).

[vi] “Spanish Central America,” One Hundred and Sixty-Third Meeting of General Conference Committee (April 5, 1907), p. 270. 

[vii] ibid., p. 299.

[viii] “Business Notices,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 85, no. 10 (March 15, 1908), p. 24. 

[ix] “Year-Book Revision,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 85, no. 22 (May 28, 1908), p. 22.

[x] Ethel Nowlen, “Obituaries/Nowlen,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 85, no. 21 (May 21, 1908), p. 23.

[xi] “One of the Little Ones,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 85, no. 18 (Apr. 30, 1908), p. 24.

[xii] Ethel Nowlen, “Guatemala,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 85, no. 28 (July 9, 1908), p. 19.

[xiii] Three Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Session, 7th Meeting of General Conference Committee (Dec. 10, 1908), p. 575.

[xiv] E. L. Cardey, “Guatemala, Central America,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 86, no. 6 (Feb. 11, 1909), p. 15; “Items of Interest/Southern Illinois,” Lake Union Herald, vol. 1, no. 12 (Jan. 20, 1909), p. 8.

[xv] William A. Spicer, “A Fallen Worker,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 86, no. 2 (Jan. 14, 1909), p. 6.

[xvi] One Hundred Ninth Meeting of General Conference Committee (Jan. 28, 1915), p. 255.

[xvii] Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventists – 1916, p. 166; Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventists – 1919, p. 189.

[xviii] One Hundred Sixtieth Meeting of General Conference Committee (July 30, 1923), p. 409.

[xix] William A. Spicer, “Seen and Heard in Porto Rico,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 95, no. 5 (Jan. 31, 1918), p. 17; William Steele, “Porto Rico,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 95, no. 48 (Nov. 28, 1918), p. 18

[xx] Nathaniel Garcia, Sin Temor al Futuro (1989), p. 9.

[xxi] General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventists,1920 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1920), 203.

[xxii] Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventists – 1926, p. 216; Pedro L. V. Welch, “East Caribbean Conference,” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (1970).

[xxiii] “In Attendance at the Division Council,” InterAmerican Division Messenger, vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1925), p. 1.

[xxiv] Ian Greene and Clive P. Dottin, “Caribbean Union Conference,” Encyclopedia of Seventhday Adventists (2020); Inter-American Division, Committee Minutes (May 18, 1926), p. 117.