James Collard Reports on Possible Charges to be Filed against His Colleague, September 4, 1841

 

James Collard and Richard Owen were both admitted On Trial at the first session of the Texas Conference on December 25, 1840 and were assigned to Montgomery.  Perhaps you consider it odd that a small town like Montgomery was assigned two pastors.  One should remember that Montgomery was the head of a circuit that was bordered on the south by Spring Creek (the present boundary between Montgomery and Harris Counties), on the east by the Trinity River, on the west by the Brazos River, and the northern boundary was ever-changing---as far as the most northerly settlements.  With such vast circuits it was common for two preachers to be appointed.  They would then ride separately.  Often one would ride the circuit clockwise and the other counter clockwise---trying to maximize the number of preaching “points.”   They generally arranged to be together only for the 4 quarterly conferences during the year.

 

By September, Owen was already in trouble.   Collard found it necessary to tell Littleton Fowler about it.  The letter is reproduced here.

 

Rev L. Fowler

September the 4th A. D. 1841

 

Rev & dear Brother Littleton Fowler,

In haste I undertake to write you a few lines concerning the work hear. This circuit has been in a good situation heartofore but in conciquence of some things that has happaned lately I greatly fear that the work will be stoped. In a measure the people has full[sic] out with Bro Owen to sutch an exstent that I fear his usefullness in [i.e., is] entierly lost. They had fell out with him for some things that he had done before. What has happened now (which is the  seperation of him & wife) & now his usefullness will be I think entirly lost on this circuit. The difficulty between him & wife appears to have been brewing for some time. I beleave the ground of it is jealousy which bred coldness.From that to neglect but not from her. This is my opinion.

The woman is to be pittied. She intends thrugh her friends to lay in her complaint to Bro Williams & I am in hopes that it will be investigated amediately for this will be the best course for the work. I do not know whether it will stop Bro Owen or not. [p. 2]

We have taken in on this circuit 120 members, about 8 of which hav[e] joined. The baptist have two campmeetings apointed. The first near Doct Graves, embracing the 2nd Sabbath in Oct. [The] 2nd at Robinson Camp Ground come[?] 21st of Oct. If you see a chance send preacher  to the above meeting. Myself & family thrugh the mercies of God are well. My wife sends her love to you all.

We kned[?] your fervent prayers. I remain your friend & Brother in the best of bonds.

J. H. Collard

 

 

Evidently Richard Owen did leave.  His name is not in the appointments for the 2^nd session of the Texas Conference.  Collard was appointed to Crockett.  

 

This difficulty reminds us of the difficulty of married men in the role of circuit riders.  It was extremely difficult to maintain a stable family life and preach the gospel as a circuit rider.  The extended absences from home, the low pay, the rigors of travel, and the lack of parsonages all conspired against marriage.  Marriage often resulted in taking “a local relation.”   That meant the preacher was still a preacher, but did not accept an appointment in the “travelling connection.”   Francis Asbury set the model by remaining unmarried and complained, “I have lost more preachers to the marriage bed than to death.”   Eventually the circuits evolved into stations, the circuit riders became station preachers.  Churches provided parsonages and family life became easier. 

This Week in Texas Methodist History, August 16

 

Houston Methodist Hospital Begins Recruiting Drive for Nurses School, August, 1948

 

 

 

In these pandemic times, we have all been reminded of the debt we owe to nurses who are on the front lines working overtime risking their lives to provide professional healing ministries to patients.

It is a time to reflect on the role of Houston Methodist Hospital (today’s Houston Methodist) in educating nurses.  

 

Nursing education began mainly as apprenticeships but during the 20^th century there were increasing demands for professionalization of nursing.  That meant both increasing educational standards and state licensure.   Methodist Hospital in Houston was an important institution in that process. 

 

Marie Louise Luppold, Director of Nursing, Houston Methodist, guided the School of Nursing through two main expansions. 

 

The first big push was World War II.  The huge demand for nurses for both the active military and veterans made recruitment of nurses in numbers never seen before imperative.  Houston Methodist Hospital entered into an agreement with the U. S. government and the University of Houston to train nurses. 

 

The first graduating class under this program and the fifteenth graduating class of Houston Methodist received their diplomas in June 1942.  Ten of the eighteen graduates went directing into military service.   The graduation ceremony was held at St. Paul’s Methodist church near the Methodist Hospital which at that time was located on San Jacinto.  Robert Goodrich, then of Riverside Church in Houston, gave the commencement address.  The graduates received associate’s degrees from the University of Houston as well as their nurse’s diploma. 

 

The second big push was the establishment of the Texas Medical Center.  The idea for a medical center began in the early 1940s with the trustees of the M. D. Anderson Foundation.  Eventually a 134 acre site adjacent to Hermann Hospital and Hermann Park became the Texas Medical Center after a 1943 vote by Houstonians to agree to sell the property.  By 1948 plans were underway to move Houston Methodist from San Jacinto to its present location fronting on Fannin Street to join the other institutions in the fledgling TMC.  By 1955 those institutions  would include M. D. Anderson Hospital (the University of Texas), Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Arabia Temple (now Shriner’s) Hospital for Crippled Children, and the UT Dental School.  Since 1955 even more facilities have been added.

 

Everyone knew that the demand for nurses would continue so Marie Luppold embarked on another recruiting drive even more ambitious than the World War II drive..  She asked all Texas Methodist pastors to recruit high school graduates from their churches---all female at this time.  They were offered free room, board, and laundry.  They would receive classroom instruction at the University of Houston and practical training in the hospital.  In three years they would receive an associate’s degree and nurse’s licensing.  Their total out of pocket expenditure for the three years would be $326 for tuition, but if a young woman couldn’t afford that, scholarships were available. 

 

Well into the 21^st century Texas Conference Journals report the recipients of Methodist Student Nursing Scholarships given through the Good Samaritan Foundation. 

 

On a personal note:   One of the Methodists who received her nursing education at Houston Methodist was my Aunt Virginia Hardt.  I look back with gratitude for the opportunity she received---having lost her father while still a teenager, the family without resources; she was able to receive a first class education in an important profession---thank you Houston Methodist. 

 

 This Week in Texas Methodist History August 9

Bishop Selecman Reports on European Trip on Eve of World War II

 

The All European Methodist Conference was scheduled for Copenhagen Aug. 2-6, 1939, and many Methodists from the states decided to attend the conference and include an extended tour of Europe.  Bishop Arthur Moore took a large group of clergy and laity and so did Bishop C. C. Selecman, former pastor of First Methodist Dallas and President of SMU.  Included in the group were others with Texas ties, Bishop Paul Kern, Ivan Lee Holt, Frank Richardson and H. I. Robinson, and Mrs. W. W. Fondren who took her granddaughter Doris.  Mr. Fondren had died the previous January.   They sailed from New York on June 28 for a six day crossing of the Atlantic.  They toured Normandy on their way to Paris.  They toured the usual sites in Paris and Versailles, and then went to Brussels, Waterloo, Berlin, and Potsdam.   Yes, the party was in Berlin just before the invasion of Poland on September 1.   Selecman and the rest of the party could not escape the pernicious Nazi grip on the city.   Krystalnacht had occurred the previous November, and the suppression of the Jews was apparent even though their tour guide tried to steer them away from Jewish neighborhoods.  Jewish merchants were required to post Stars of David in their windows and could sell only to other Jews.  Selecman did bring up the name of Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984) who by this time had already spent 2 years in a concentration camp.  The tour guide replied, “Oh, he got involved in politics.”  

 

While in Berlin the tour group could not escape the pervasiveness of the Hitler Youth who seemed to be everywhere.  They also noted the food rationing in place.  We know now that Hitler was stockpiling food rations for his military.

 

The party then went to Hamburg and boarded another liner for a three week cruise that took them to Iceland, Spitzbergen and the Norwegian coast.    They arrived in Copenhagen on Aug. 2 for the conference which included delegates from Germany, Spain, Moravia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, North Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, the Madeira Islands, Lithuania, Norway, Italy, Jugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, France, Bulgaria, Finland, and Denmark.  The total Methodist membership in all those countries at the time was 122,000. 

 

One of the speakers who received a standing ovation was Josef Bartak  (1887-1964) of Prague.  Bartak had entered the ministry in Texas and was alum of Southwestern University.  See previous post  https://txmethhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=bartak

 

The Conference reported 1600 deaconesses, 910 church buildings, and 80,000 members on the youth roll.   The total value of the property of churches, publishing concerns, etc. was $40,000,000.

 

The Selecman party docked in New York on August 28----three days before the invasion of Poland and the onset of terrible times for both the world and the Methodist church in Europe. 

 

I usually don’t play “What if?” but this story invites the question of what if Mrs. Fondren and Bishops, Moore,Selecman, Kern, and Holt had been in Berlin when the invasion of Poland was ordered?   Thank goodness we will never know.

 

 

 

This Week in Texas Methodist History  Aug 2

Industry Methodists Give Farewell Supper on the Ground to Medical Missionaries Heading to China, August 1939

 

Ernst Weiss was a member of the Industry MEC church in western Austin County.  Although he had dropped out of high school to help on the farm, he received a divine call to become a missionary to India.  His faithful response to that call led him to Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio.  While there, he was a student pastor at Zion Methodist near Marion, Ohio.  One of his parishioners was a young woman named Hilda whom he eventually married.    Cincinnati was the hub of German Methodism.  It was the site of the German language newspaper for the MEC, and more importantly for our story, maintained teaching hospitals to train medical missionaries, both doctors and deaconesses.  Another Industry Methodist, Bertha Ott, had gone to Cincinnati and eventually became the head pharmacist at the teaching hospital.  Ernst moved to Cincinnati to become a physician.

 

When they finished their education, there was no opening in India but there was a spot at Nanchang, Jiangixi Province China.   Before they left, they came back to Industry for a farewell.  Ernst and Hilda had no way of knowing that the East Asian wars would make them refugees not once but twice. 

 

 

They were working in Nanchang when a letter from their bishop arrived on December 4, 1941 telling them to evacuate.  It was too late.  After Pearl Harbor Ernst and Hilda became enemy aliens because that part of China was under Japanese control.  On March 7 the Japanese closed the hospital and sent the enemy aliens to be interned in Shanghai. Hilda was pregnant at the time so the couple welcomed a daughter in their family while interned.

 

Eventually the Weiss family was exchanged for Japanese citizens who had been in Allied territory when the war started.  The internees were put on a vessel and sailed for Portuguese Goa where there was another liner filled with Japanese internees.  They traded places, and the Weiss family was back in America on December 1, 1943. 

 

They spent the war years giving talks in churches and with Ernst working at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, but in 1946 they were on their way back to China. 

 

They worked in China until 1951 when the Communist Chinese government expelled them.  They lived in Cincinnati from 1951 to 1955.  Since they could not return to China, they went to South Korea. They worked in South Korea until health issues resulted in an early retirement.  They lived in San Antonio at Morningside Manor where Ernst died in November 1984.   Hilda remarried a retired minister from the Texas Conference, Darwin Andrus.   Today Hilda, Ernst, and Darwin are buried at Industry in a pavilion overlooking a beautiful panoramic scene of field and forest—one of the most picturesque cemeteries in Texas.  It is beside the church where Ernst and Hilda had been honored with supper on the ground in 1939. 

 

This information is summarized from a fascinating memoir  Hilda’s Book:  Faithful to the End: American Missionary to China and Korea in the mid-twentieth Century © 2008 Hilda Weiss-Andrus and Elizabeth Weiss Richardson.    

 

This memoir is one of the great missionary memoirs of Methodism!