Church Bells Ring

Frontier women soon instituted Sunday school, recruited students, taught those classes, and even attended regional conferences to report their progress.  Prayer meeting were held each week.  Women held fund raisers, and raised financial aid to support their churches, giving the women a sense of power in their new frontier communities.  One St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oregon City begged their womens' society to help bail them out of year-end bankruptcy. Women who chose to come west as missionaries (they numbered over 2000) were missionaries first and wives second.

Congregations were predominantly female with only one out of every four men a member of any church.  Churches on the frontier were quite different than those back east.  Back home there was bells, large buildings, fancy clothes, and permanent preachers.  On the frontier, churches were often simple clapboard buildings, schoolhouses, even a home parlor.  There were no bells in early churches, no fancy clothes, and no permanent ministers.

For women church was a symbol of society, something they missed greatly.  The church symbolized community progress and an opportunity to gather together. Church sponsored parties and dances  were enjoyed in a civilized frontier community.

Of course, not everyone agreed with dancing,  One woman wrote "They got a bit huffy about it, but we did not care a fig for them." Another said that if a preacher could preach a sermon they would not dance, but they must have a dance or a sermon.  The minister supposedly took his hat and left.

Next time...Women Societies