Aunt Becky: "Many mickles make a muckle"

In her persona as “Aunt Becky”, Rebecca Cameron, a member of St. Matthew’s, Hillsborough, wrote her “Messengers of Hope” column beginning sometime in the 1890s until September 1922. The Diocesan newspaper was called The Messenger of Hope between October 1889 and September 1909, when the name changed to The Carolina Churchman. The Diocesan Archives has a single issue from 1895, which does not carry the column, but beginning with a complete run of issues in 1897, the column appears in almost every issue. This column included letters of Sunday School children who developed correspondence and a relationship with Aunt Becky as they sent in their donations to the Thompson Orphanage (in Charlotte). Falling back into her Scottish heritage, Rebecca’s often repeated message that “many mickles make a muckle” emphasized that the small things were of great importance. For the Sunday School children who were her “messengers of hope”, sending their pennies, and later dimes and dollars, would mean that funds for a campus bell, infirmary repairs and painting, books for clergymen, and ultimately the Sewing Teacher’s Salary, would be there for Thompson Orphanage to use.  

(Source: Ellen Weig, St. Matthew’s, Hillsborough, “Many mickles make a muckle,” The Disciple, Fall 2011)

We may call it “A Foundation Sale” – since on its success rests our basic hopes

The fall has come and with it a deep interest that something shall be done within the year toward uplifting the conditions surrounding this institution. The women of the Thompson Orphanage Guild of Charlotte are taking the first step toward this direction; but they cannot step far without your assistance nor do they wish to. About the middle of November they will hold a sale of useful and fancy articles made by them and by you – let us hope. We may call it “A Foundation Sale” – since on its success rests our basic hopes. Cannot you insure its success by making us one article? There will be no doubt of that article’s sale. Success depends upon our capacity to make you realize our need of you and of that brick you hold within your hand. If we are to have a home for homeless children let us see that it is fitting for a home. This cannot be until Carolina understands that we depend upon the help of Carolina – not on St. Peter’s of Charlotte nor Christ’s Church of Raleigh – but upon Carolina from the mountains to the sea.

(Source: Thompson Orphanage Guild of Charlotte, The Carolina Churchman, November 1909, p. 17)

Let those who vote for woman suffrage in elections in the Diocese of NC be prepared for the logical steps

At a recent meeting of the Diocese of Lexington, a commission made a report in answer to a petition to make women eligible to seats in the Diocesan Convention. The commission declined to recommend such a step in absence of similar action on the part of the General Convention. Let those who vote for woman suffrage in parish elections in the Diocese of North Carolina be prepared for the logical steps – women vestry men, women wardens, women delegates in conventions, etc., and suffragist bishops?

(Source: “Editorial Brevities,” The Carolina Churchman, September 1912, p. 4)

the Charlotte Guild so longs for these good things at the Orphanage

Be ye delegate or simply friend of the Orphanage, Charlotte longs for your presence and wants to give you a royal welcome. If the Charlotte Guild so longs for these good things at the Orphanage it is because her eyes have ever been tormented with the bad. It is not quixotic to say that although the new plans call for an expenditure of $100,000, there would be little difficulty in procuring the funds if the State would come and see the cramped and unhealthy environment of these children. Would that it could be impressed upon the hearts longing to uplift, that your presence at these Federation meetings would go far towards uplifting. If impossible to come here, Charlotte stands ever ready to send to you one who will bring the children into your heart and home – Miss Emma Hall. It is misleading to say “send,” because the beauty of her doing lies in the spontaneity of it, in the free-will offering of her talent, her time and her means; yet she rests only when no hand beckons her to come, and longs to tell the state of the Thompson Orphanage work. The Bishop endorses the faithfulness of her telling, the Federation sends her, begging each town not to fail sometime in the year to hear her. Even now she waits to go, and will be happy to hear at any time of parishes where she is wanted to tell the story of the Federation work.

(Source: “Annual Meeting of the Federation of Thompson Orphanage Guilds,” The Carolina Churchman, June, 1910, p. 7)

Women were critical to the organization of St. Luke’s in 1823 and every stage of its growth thereafter

In truth, women were critical to the organization of St. Luke’s in 1823 and every stage of its growth thereafter. Ladies working societies had existed at St. Luke’s in its earliest years, and they raised funds for various projects and improvements through the antebellum period. The St. Cecilia Society was composed of those who sought to improve the church’s musical program. Another society, a chapter of the Daughters of the King, was organized at St. Luke’s in November 1892. It was the first chapter in North Carolina, and named itself the Bishop Lyman Chapter, in honor of the long-serving bishop, Theodore Benedict Lyman, who would die a year later, on 11 December 1893… . A chapter house became the first successful project undertaken by the Bishop Lyman Chapter. At a meeting on 4 September 1893 the vestry unanimously approved a motion “that the Daughters of the King be allowed to build a large room to the side & rear of the Church for their meetings & other church purposes.” The building remained in planning for a year, until September 1894 when the vestry agreed to borrow any necessary amount above $200 to be raised by the chapter. The small rectangular freestanding building, now serving as the chapel, was completed in 1895. Of plain, workmanlike brick masonry, it was fitted with lancet-arch windows and a doorway in its southwest side that now opens into the hallway of the library.

(Source: Davyd Foard Hood, From Generation to Generation: A History of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Salisbury, North Carolina, 2006, pp. 143-44)

They have abundant enthusiasm and ability

The Woman’s Guild, named St. Elizabeth’s, has done notable work in behalf of the new organization, and it was through their efforts the enterprise was started. It is bending its energies towards raising money for the purchase of a suitable lot on which to build a house of worship. They have abundant enthusiasm and ability, and will no doubt succeed in all their endeavors. A good strong church is much needed in Dilworth.

(Source: The Rev. George M. Tolson, Parochial Report, Church of the Holy Comforter, Charlotte (Dilworth), 1903 Journal of Convention, 75-76)

If the men will not, the women must

Part III

We need the money of our men, but more than their money we need the men themselves – their hearts, their hands, their feet, their tongues! But will our men keep their crowns? Or will they suffer our noble women to take them? Somebody must wear them. If the men will not, the women must. If Jew will not heed God’s voice, God must needs turn to the Gentile.

(Source: The Rev. George M. Tolson, Report of the Archdeacon of Raleigh, 1907 Journal of Convention, 130-31)

It is man, not woman, Christ, not Mary, who must redeem the world

Part II

… When our men awake and rush to God’s waiting fields of labor, as soldiers, athirst for glory and victory, fling themselves upon bloody battlements of carnage, the Church will stand erect and gather to herself earth’s millions, clothing them rejoicingly in garments of eternal redemption. It is man, not woman, Christ, not Mary, who must redeem the world. We are in danger of reversing God’s order. The twelve were men. St. Peter, not his wife, was Apostle to the Circumcision. The Apostle to the Gentiles was Paul, the unmarried man. Women have their work and high place in the kingdom; but men are fittest for the pulling down of Satan’s strongholds, and for the building of the mighty walls and challenging towers of Zion. It is to men the Master gives the great commission. If men will hear and heed, and waking, go to work, “nations will be born in a day,” and Christ will “see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.” …

(Source: The Rev. George M. Tolson, Report of the Archdeacon of Raleigh, 1907 Journal of Convention, 130-31)

The school in her home was an original Head Start program

The long and faithful journey of Catharine Cornelia Perry Weston, daughter of an Episcopal priest, wife of an Episcopal priest, mother of an Episcopal priest, and great aunt of an Episcopal priest, began in 1884 and ended in 1965. … (She) was head of the Woman’s Auxiliary and active in many other programs of the Church. …Her vision for the children she taught and for the community where she lived was often far ahead of accepted expectations. She lived long enough to see some of her hopes fulfilled in the great social changes of the last century. Most of all she specialized in stimulating young people to greater achievement and a high sense of their personal dignity and duty.

To learn more about this extraordinary woman who led by word and example, click here.

Clinging to hope the men's missionary movement will be summoned from its grave

Part I

I regret to be compelled to report that the Men’s Missionary movement, upon which were laid strong hopes for the future, has not fulfilled the purpose and promise of its creation. No new leagues, so far as I know, have been organized, and those formerly begun have not made themselves felt in any gratifying degree. It is to be feared that most of them, if not all have died, and that the cause of death was starvation. Such organizations must be fed with something to do, or else they quickly perish. It is to be suspected, at any rate, that the defunct laymen’s movement was too strongly inoculated with the disease that afflicts many men in our church, “Do-nothing-ism,” and so died untimely, “unhonored, and unsung,” even if by a few churchmen grievously lamented. It is certain no truthful tombstone dare lift head of praise above its microscopic dust. Still there is always chance of resurrection for everything connected with the Church and her risen Lord. It is to be hoped, therefore, even if Hope clings perilously to the edge of Despair, that something can yet be done, some scheme hatched out, some bolt of energy shot forth, that will summon the movement from its grave, and cause it to take on a better, stronger life than it had at first – a life widening, deepening, and extending into all our Parishes, and even into our smallest, feeblest Missions.

(Source: The Rev. George M. Tolson, Report of the Archdeacon of Raleigh, 1907 Journal of Convention, 130-31)