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7.20.2012

Back East


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Charlotte and Dorothy on the shore of a lake near Osakaloosa - late 40's


So what do adventurous young women do when the opportunities dry up at home?  Hit the Road.

Charlotte took an offer of Dean of Women at William Penn College in Osakaloosa, Iowa. (Her brother Mahlon reported that this job was "dorm mother")  While visiting the campus she found that Iowa had quite a few poor churches that would consider female ministry. She reported this to Dorothy.

Dorothy Barratt talked Leta Hockett into going to Greenville, Iowa to take a small church.  The church did well with their nurture and care, and they were appreciated. Dorothy stated that the church neglected to tell them that the parsonage did not have indoor plumbing except for a pump in the kitchen, and that the pump was broken. To cheer themselves up they painted the outhouse door bright red.

Charlotte only stayed at William Penn for one year. She told her brother that she was disappointed in it because she found it "Too Worldly."  We can from this point in history only speculate about what sort of loose living and heretical ideas were rampant in Osakaloosa in 1948. Apparently Charlotte's ideals were untarnished.

After a Year at William Penn, she decided to go farther east to Asbury Seminary to get a Master's of Divinity. Surely that would get her some opportunities. Asbury was (and to an extent still is) the premier school for Holiness preachers. Dorothy stayed in Iowa.


Charlotte's dissertation in 1949 nine was titled "The Extension Department in the Local Church School."  This illustrates her early interest in young people and her dream of a church big enough to have departments inside other departments.

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// posted by Peggy Senger Morrison @ Friday, July 20, 2012
Comments:
I visited William Penn College in the spring of 1948! That was when Cecil Hinshaw was President, and the college was a hotbed of radical pacifism (quite a few non-registrants, including my future brother--in-law, Ken Champney), interracial dating, etc. Hinshaw was fired that summer. Was Charlotte Macy there 1947 to 1948 (Cecil Hinshaw's final year) or 1948 to 1949 (the return to the old fundamentalist regime)?

Vail
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : July 20, 2012 9:52 PM
 
Wow, Vail, you were everywhere! There are some date irregularities, but since she wrote her paper at Asbury in the spring of 49, and graduated Pacific in 46, I think she was most likely at Penn during 47-48. Maybe you did meet the woman!
# posted by Blogger Peggy Senger Morrison : July 21, 2012 12:51 AM
 
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