Here from oldest to youngest are demographic details. One founder was twice widowed, with five children from her first marriage. Her second husband from his first marriage had a child disabled from birth. The next founder’s father died when she was age eight. She was raised by her mother. She herself was widowed at age 34 with two children. The next founder, the oldest of six children, was a parent to her siblings after her mother died and before her father remarried. The next founder and her siblings were caregivers to their youngest sister who was disabled. Her father died when she was age 14; her mother remarried immediately. Siblings and step siblings numbered two boys and eight girls. The next founder’s mother died when she was three years old. She was raised by her father and stepmother. She married at age 17. Two of six children did not reach maturity. The next founder’s father died before she was age two leaving her mother with as many as 10 children from 2 marriages. She married at age 14 and had seven children. The next founder was age two when her father died. She was raised by her mother, an aunt and uncle. The final founder married at age 19. Two children were born disabled and two others died by age five. “Methodism was comprehensively shaped by women in ways we still do not fully understand,” wrote David Hempton in 2005. 2 Readers today, because of the pandemic, can understand the founders’ goals better than even five years ago. How the founders shaped the church that succeeded theirs and its members may be so obvious that it cannot yet be completely seen. The author hopes this book adds clarity to the founders’ contributions. These eight women have long since been forgotten. Even some of their descendants are unaware of them. The name of the church they founded and the church building itself died with them. Members of the successor church also may be unaware of them. The author hopes this book helps recreate the founders and gives them their proper place in our memories. These women were outside the Methodist power structure. Readers should know that “. . . the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did not permit women to be Stewards or Trustees or Sunday School Superintendents in a
2 David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005), 149.
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