| Three women who led the way for United Methodism  By Nancy H. Zabel March is Womens History Month. As part of the observance, I would like to share with you a little about the accomplishments of three remarkable Methodist women. Annie Wittenmyer Born in 1827 in Ohio, Sarah Ann Tucker Wittenmyer was known to her friends as Annie. She is known to history as Iowas Angel of the Civil War, founder of the womens society of the Methodist Church, and a champion for children and the poor. Married at 20, she moved to Iowa, which at the time had no public schools. Wittenmyer went to work and created not only a free school for the poor, but also a Sunday school program that grew into Chatham Square Methodist Episcopal Church.  During the Civil War, Wittenmyer ministered to the wounded and dying on the battlefield. When she realized more soldiers were dying from malnutrition than combat wounds, she began a kitchen system to assist soldiers stranded in hospitals. President Abraham Lincoln issued her a pass that allowed her to go anywhere she wished throughout the Armys lines.
When the war ended, Wittenmyer was invited by church leaders to Philadelphia to organize a society to minister to the spiritual and temporal needs of the poor and homeless. In 1872, she created the Ladies and Pastors Christian Union, a forerunner of the Womans Home Missionary Society, itself a forerunner of United Methodist Women. In November 1874, at the first convention of the National Womans Christian Temperance Union, Wittenmyer was elected to be the president. But her direct questions and we women can do it ourselves attitude was a new sensation for many women who hadnt had her experience and didnt feel comfortable making decisions on their own. This was the beginning of the womens movement. Anna Howard Shaw Born in England in 1847, Anna Howard Shaw immigrated to Michigan when she was 12. Her father left her, her invalid mother and several siblings in a cabin with only holes for doors and windows and fields full of stumps. Shaw thrived on the adventure. With two years of education, she became a teacher at age 15. She later graduated with degrees in theology and medicine from Boston University. Shaw was the first woman to be ordained in any branch of Methodism by the New York Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church in 1880. She was considered a master orator, and during her 72-year life, delivered more than 10,000 speeches worldwide on temperance, womens suffrage and peace. After the death of suffragette Susan B. Anthony, Shaw led the nations fight to secure womens right to vote, which culminated in the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A memorial to her in Big Rapids, Mich., states, she cut a path through the tangled underwood of old traditions to a broader way. Frances Elizabeth Willard In 1988, eight women, including myself, served as delegates from the Baltimore Conference to General Conference. That year, one-third of the total assembly that sets the denominations policy and polity were women. Its hard to think of that and not remember Francis Willard who 100 years ago blazed the path for us. Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was born in New York in 1839. She grew up to become one of the nations leading educators. In 1888, Willard and four other women were elected by their annual conferences to be lay delegates to the Methodist General Conference. After considerable debate, the men at General Conference refused to allow them to take their seats. Four years later, Willard was again elected to serve and was able to take her rightful place. Willard had always been a force to be reckoned with. In 1874, at the organizing convention of the national Womens Christian Temperance Union, she was elected the first corresponding secretary of the organization. She worked tirelessly for the protection of the home and to educate the public about the harmful effects of alcohol and other habit-forming substances. She eventually served as the president of the national and world temperance unions, which she founded, until she died in 1898. At the time of her death she was said to have been the best-known woman in the world, second to Queen Victoria. A white marble sculpture of her was placed in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. She was the first woman so honored. Willard died at the age of 58 in New York City. Her last words were: How beautiful to be with God. Nancy Zabel is a member of Trinity UMC in Frederick. | 
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