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

Women of Faith Make a Change

The Houston Morning Start reported "It is a source of much astonishment and of considerable severe complaint that while we have a theatre, a courthouse, a jail, and even a capitol in Houston,  we have not one single church"  It was difficult to keep building churches and congregations as the pioneers moved west.

According to recorded statistics, women were much more likely to be part of a church than a man.  Some records show total female congregations.  As far back as the beginning of their long journey west, women began talking about the "Disappearance of the Sabbath" as they called it.  The need to find food and water for the animals, to cover more miles, trade supplies -  women tell of "traveling on the Sabbath is not pleasant" and "I was obliged to do many things I was loathe to do on the Sabbath".

Sunday seems to be the day for men to lay on the grass and rest as women continued their work.  "There is nothing that seems like the Sabbath" laments one frontier woman on the trail.
A woman's spiritual needs were satisfied with church and church activities.  It linked their new life with the old one they left behind and supported their role as the future builders of the community and western civilization.
Next time...Church Bells Ring