This Week in Texas Methodist History September 6

Maggie Jo Rogers Leaves Marlin for Scarritt to Begin Missionary Career   September 1902

In September 1902 twenty-four year old Maggie Jo Rogers left Marlin to attend Scarritt Bible Training School in Kansas City.  She would graduate in May  1904 and in October 1904 arrived in Soochow, China, where she was to devote thirty-six years to evangelistic work in that city.  

In a sense she had been preparing for her life’s work for years.  Her mother, Florella Cloy Rogers, was a charter member of the Marlin Woman’s Missionary Society.  She enrolled Maggie as a child in the “Rosebuds,” a children’s arm of the Society, sometimes called the “Cradle Roll.”

Mrs. Sarah “Sallie” Philpott was President of the Texas Conference Society.  She lived close to Marlin in Dew and when urging local chapters to raise funds for scholarships to Scarritt, also urged Texas Conference women to apply for those missionary scholarships.  

Maggie Rogers later wrote that when Philpott’s appeal was read in the Marlin Society, she knew the call to missionary service was meant for her.  When she shared her decision, it resulted in a “praising, crying time,” and the Marlin women showered Maggie with the things she would need at Scarritt.  

Maggie Jo Rogers graduated from Scarritt in May 1904, and the Board of Missions appointed her to Soochow, China.  She remained in that post until the South Central Jurisdictional Board granted her the superannuate relation in 1943 at the age of 65 and with the Japanese in their long occupation of the Chinese coast, including Soochow.  

She lived another 15 years and was buried in the Cavalry Cemetery in Marlin.  Here is a link to her picture

 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8598035&ref=acom