each time the Church rebuffed their requests for more spiritual support from traveling preachers it strengthened their resolve. Emily’s half-sister Caroline Rebecca Mounce moved to Greenwood in the early 1850s. Louisa Jane and Caroline Rebecca had in common that they were young mothers with young children. Emily’s sister-in-law Eliza Osborn was already a member of the group. They had known Caroline Rebecca all of her life but Louisa Jane probably was the most vocal in urging that she be invited to join the group, likely thinking that they together could be a stronger voice for families with young children and their mothers who had married very young. To this group, in my estimation, Methodist women of all walks of life had unmet spiritual needs. Members of the group probably believed their challenge was how to persuade traveling preachers to act on this premise. The women probably organized themselves formally after Caroline Rebecca joined. Setting goals and priorities, in my estimation they carried out some of the following activities: identifying which local women most needed support, meeting regularly with the preacher to give him a list of women to visit, providing a guide to accompany the preacher to their homes and visiting some of those most in need themselves when the preacher was not available. A newly built railroad drew businesses and homes from elsewhere into the village to cluster around the station. Communication became easier because people lived and worked closer together. At some point, the women probably concluded that what Greenwood needed was a church, that a traveling preacher could not meet their goals, only a church could. To accomplish this, they probably assumed a structural change and an interested and sympathetic pastor to live in their midst were all that was needed. Meanwhile, the group probably continued to work with traveling preachers and added three more members later in the decade, the youngest of whom galvanized everyone. When the church decentralized its structure and brought two pastors to live in the village, they were ready. After founding Greenwood Methodist Church, Emily vanished. She did not live in Elizabeth Byrd’s household in 1860. She does not appear in Greenwood County, South Carolina, Cemetery Records . Repeated searches elsewhere turned up nothing. If she married, perhaps, one day, a descendant of her husband’s family will be curious about her and help us know more about this remarkable, unheralded woman.
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