Methodism – The Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Last week, I did my research trip to Missouri and Kansas. This trip generated many insights for my book, and it will provide material for my next several blog posts.

Monday and Tuesday, May 24 and 25, I visited the State Historical Society of Missouri office in Rolla. It is housed in the Wilson Library at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, or Missouri S&T. This school was previously called the University of Missouri at Rolla, and before that it was the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. The State Historical Society of Missouri has collections at universities around the state: Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla, St. Louis, and Springfield. Materials at any location can be sent to any of the others. I requested some reels of microfilm be sent from the University of Missouri at Columbia to Rolla so that I could look at them. They were for the Mansfield Mail from 1895 to 1906 and the Mansfield Mirror from 1923 to 1936. Both were weekly newspapers published in Mansfield.

Katie Seale in the Rolla office kindly obtained the microfilm before I arrived. Once I was there, she taught me to use the microfilm reader, which was a scanner connected to a desktop computer. The technology was incredibly good, especially compared to the microfilm readers and printers used by historians for decades. It was able to make even very dark microfilm images readable. The system also allowed me to scan portions of a page of the newspaper and paste them directly into my notes. After several hours, I was in a groove, and in the two days I had looked at all the issues of the Mansfield Mail and had made some headway in the Mirror.

I was mainly looking for places where the local newspapers mentioned one of the churches in the town, other Christian activities, or the Wilders. I was not disappointed. In fact, it was the first issue I looked at that included a description of the founding of the Mansfield Methodist Episcopal Church, where the Wilders eventually settled. I reproduce that article in full:

The Methodists

Organized Sunday with a Good Membership

The Revival

The revival held in the C. P. Church by Rev. Worthen resulted in much good in the interest aroused, the crowds that attended and in the enlivening of religious interest in the city, and, especially, in the organization of a Methodist Episcopal Church in our midst. The number of conversions were twenty-three and number of accessions to the M. E. church was twenty-six.

Organization of the church was effected on Sunday, last, by Rev. E. G. Cattermole officiating, assisted by Revs. Rowden and Worthen. The organization starts out with twenty-six members, while twelve or fifteen more will come in soon. The new church will be in the Rev. Mr. Cattermole’s charge until Conference meets, which will be in March, when its future supervision will be determined.

Rev. Worthen did a good work here and should have credit, we presume, for the most of the work, as he labored incessantly and without compensation. He is, in fact, an able minister and could do much good if he would learn not to antagonize every interest and every body not directly in conformity with his views, and berate them in language strangely in contrast with the doctrines of the Bible. Nothing can be gained by making enemies in church work; but everything may be gained by making friends and by persuasion. Nevertheless, the work accomplished here was a good work and just credit should be given for it, although enemies were made for the church by the bitterness of the language used by Rev. Worthen; but our people should remember that this was not the fault of our new church or of our home church people, but of an outside individual. (Mansfield Mail, 22 February 1895)

This is a striking article for a couple reasons. First, it sets the origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mansfield in February 1895. The Mansfield United Methodist Church histories that I had read previously say that the church was founded in 1899. The first church building was completed in 1899, but according to this news story, it appears that the congregation was founded four years earlier. However, I’m still wondering about the entry Laura wrote about Mansfield in her diary of her family’s trip from DeSmet, South Dakota to Mansfield on August 30, 1894: “There is a Methodist Church and a Presbyterian.” (On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, with a setting by Rose Wilder Lane [New York: Harper and Row, 1962], p. 74). This suggests that there was already a Methodist church in existence the previous year. Perhaps I will be able to access Methodist Church district records that will shed light on when exactly the Mansfield Methodist Episcopal Church was founded.

In addition, it is fascinating that the author of this article combines straightforward reporting about the revival and its results with what might be seen as editorial comments about the pastors involved. This kind of editorializing was not uncommon during the late nineteenth century. It does indicate that some pastors emphasized their denomination’s doctrines instead of beliefs that all Christians share. It is unclear, obviously, whether the author’s assessment of the pastor’s actions was shared by others who committed to the new church. I think that Laura Ingalls Wilder would probably have resonated with the newspaper reporter’s attitude.

Another item provided regularly in these local newspapers is the schedule for full worship services led by the pastor at each church in Mansfield. There was some shifting over time, but it appears that there were “preaching” services either one or two times a month at the Methodist Church. In some years, it was the first and third Sunday mornings, during others it was the third and fourth, and sometimes it was just the third. This was because the pastor assigned by the Bishop served more than one church.

I believe that I now have an almost complete listing of pastors who served the Mansfield Methodist Church between 1895 and 1935. At least it is more complete than any list I have seen. They were:

E. G. Cattermole, 1895

J. S. Meracle, 1897

T. P. Leckliter, 1898

C. F. Tippen 1899

W. H. Yount or Yaunt, 1899-1900, 1903-1904

John J. Frazier, 1904

B. D. Jones, 1908-1909

B. E. Niblack, 1912-1913

J. J. Wolfe, 1913-1914

J. W. Needham, 1914-1915

Guy Willis Holmes, 1916-1919

Thomas E. Prall, 1919-1920

A. J. Graves, 1920-1921

Clyde E. Little, 1921-1922

W. A. Gray, 1922-1923

M. O. Morris, 1923-1924

George A. Wells, 1924-1926

C. C. Van Zant, 1927-1929

William A. Dahlem, 1929-1931

J. E. Owen, 1930-1931

Andrew C. Runge, 1931-1932

D. S. Frazier, 1932-1933

Holley Day, 1933-1936 (maybe longer)

Pastors normally only served for one year and then were assigned elsewhere. It appears that by the late 1920s and 1930s, however, it was more common for a pastor to serve multiple years.

As far as considering the faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I’m gathering answers to basic questions about the Methodist Church in Mansfield—when was it founded? When did they meet for worship? Who was the pastor?—in hopes that they will contribute to answering other questions: What was spiritual formation like for members of a church in a small town like Mansfield, where a pastor came to preach just once or twice a month, and where he served just one year and then moved on? Did the Wilders attend Sunday School, which was held weekly? The newspapers report on events sponsored by the Methodist Church Ladies Aid Society, and they regularly give the program for Epworth League and Christian Endeavor meetings for young people. It doesn’t seem that Laura was very active in the Ladies Aid. When Laura’s name appears in the newspaper, it is usually 1) as an official in the Mansfield chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star or in 2) relation to activities of two women’s clubs, the Justamere Club in Mansfield and the Athenian Club which had members in both Mansfield and Hartville. She also served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Mansfield chapter of the National Farm Loan Association.

Many thanks to my institution, Trinity Christian College, for funding my travel. More about other things I learned on the research trip in future posts. Thanks for reading.

Links:

State Historical Society of Missouri

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Trinity Christian College

The spring academic term at Trinity is over. We were able to hold two in-person commencement ceremonies in a local minor-league ballpark for our 2020 and 2021 graduates. Though it was cold, it didn’t rain. My daughter was a 2020 graduate and got to walk across the stage with her friends.

That was two weeks ago. Last week we had a variety of end-of-year meetings. This week my schedule opened up a bit, so I have been able to return to work on the book. Trinity has provided funding for me to travel next week to the State Historical Society of Missouri and look at newspapers from Mansfield, Missouri, where Laura and Almanzo Wilder lived from 1894 to the end of their lives. I will be looking for information about the churches in that town, particularly the Methodist Church, where the Wilders worshipped.

In preparation for the trip, this week I read Frank Tucker’s The Methodist Church in Missouri, 1798-1939: A Brief History. The book was published in 1966. It is an institutional church history, describing the origins and growth of what eventually became the three different Methodist denominations in Missouri during the early twentieth century: The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC), the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), and the Methodist Protestant Church (MPC). Tucker places the growth and development of these churches in two contexts: 1) events in Missouri, including early growth of white population in the state, the Civil War, and reforms during the early 20^th century, and 2) developments in the denominations nationally. The book ends with the merger of the three denominations to become The Methodist Church in 1939.

Tucker’s book does not mention Mansfield, and it only briefly refers to the spread of Methodism in the Ozarks more generally. But reading the book taught me a lot about Methodism and reminded me of a lot I had previously learned about Missouri’s history. Some particular things:

Terminology: Methodist denominations are governed by a General Conference which meets every four years. Smaller geographic areas are governed by an Annual Conference, and still smaller areas have a Quarterly Conference. Ministers are appointed annually to particular churches by the Bishop of the area.

Divisions: The MPC left he MEC in the 1830s because of disagreements about governance: how leaders of Quarterly Conferences were chosen and whether lay leaders could be members of Annual and General Conferences. The greater disruption to Missouri Methodism came when the MECS split from the MEC in the 1840s because of disagreements about slavery. Annual Conferences were allowed to choose whether to stay with the MEC or leave with the MECS; the Missouri Annual Conference voted to join the MECS. However, some churches in Missouri then voted to remain in the MEC. As a result, for almost 100 years, churches in Missouri belonged to one of three different Methodist denominations. Since Missouri was a border state, it had much more diversity among the three groups than, say, Minnesota, where most Methodists were MEC, or Alabama, where nearly all Methodists were MECS.

The Border War, Bleeding Kansas, and the Civil War: The 1850s and 1860s were terrible years for Missourians. The MEC and MECS both founded churches in Kansas, and there were Methodists among both the Bushwhackers and the Jayhawkers, both before and during the war. Some MECS churches were occupied by pastors from the MEC. The MPC also divided over slavery.

Ministries: After the Civil War, as Missouri’s population grew and experienced more prosperity, Methodist churches initiated additional ministries. Sunday Schools became more widespread and organized. Epworth Leagues were started to provide young people in their teens and twenties with leisure activities and opportunities for spiritual growth. Methodist denominations founded colleges, hospitals, and training schools for nurses. Methodists also participated in the late-nineteenth century explosion of world missions.

Race: Before the Civil war, there were African-American members in all three denominations. After the war, Black Methodists left the MECS after the Civil War to form the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which later was renamed the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. In the MEC, blacks had their own churches, pastors, districts, and annual conferences.

Reunion: During the decades surrounding the Civil War, there was competition and even conflict among churches in the MEC, MECS, and MPC. By the late 1800s, however, animosity had cooled. The three denominations collaborated on a hymnal in 1904, and there were calls from the Annual Conferences in Missouri for the denominations to merge. The merger was finalized in a uniting General Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1939.

The Missouri United Methodist Archives (MUMA) is located in the library at Central Methodist University in Fayette, in north central Missouri. Central Methodist is the sole remaining institution of higher education founded by Methodists in the 1800s. John Finley, the Archivist at MUMA, has been very helpful in sending me information from the Archives about the Methodist Church in Mansfield. Apparently it was part of the MEC. Finley suggests that this would have been more congenial to Laura and Almanzo since the MEC was dominant in the upper Midwest where they were from. So perhaps there were similarities as well as regional and cultural differences between the Methodist Church in Mansfield and the one in Walnut Grove, Minnesota that Laura attended for at least a year as a child.

Tucker’s book provided me with state-level and denominational context for Methodist churches in Missouri. As a work of church history that focuses on church leaders and institutional activities, however, it doesn’t ask or answer questions that a social historian might ask, like: What was it like to be a member or pastor in a church that was part of the MEC in a state that was dominated by the MECS? In a small town like Mansfield during the early 1900s, where a pastor came to preach just once a month, did members feel connected to the Methodist practice of circuit riding in the late 1700s and early 1800s? Or was it just a fact of life, since all churches in Mansfield at the time—Baptist, Christian, Methodist, and Presbyterian—only had preaching once a month? As is often the case, historical work is about struggling with the questions, not finding the answer.

I’m looking forward to being back in Missouri for research next week. Thanks for reading.

Picture credit: I scanned the front of the dust jacket of the book.

Links:

Trinity Christian College

Trinity Christian College Commencement

The State Historical Society of Missouri

The Methodist Church in Missouri, 1798-1939: A Brief History

The Missouri United Methodist Archives