Honoring One’s Mother and God’s Calling, Too

Beginning in 1857, Episcopal bishops began setting apart women for a ministry of service as deaconesses. For over a century, Episcopal deaconesses ministered as nurses, teachers, chaplains, caregivers, administrators, fundraisers, and missionaries—both within the United States and around the world. They often served under difficult conditions, with little compensation, and always under gendered definitions. The deaconess movement concluded when the 1970 General Convention authorized the ordination of women as deacons.

Today we celebrate deaconess Harriet Bedell, born in Buffalo, New York on March 19, 1875. She trained as a school teacher, but traditional classrooms could not contain her. She longed for something more.

When Harriet was 30 years old, she attended a lecture given by an Episcopal missionary to China and knew this was what God was calling her to do in her life. She enrolled as a student at the New York Training School for Deaconesses, where she took classes on religion, nutrition, mission, teaching, and even hygiene. Her heart was set on pursuing a ministry of international mission, but her mother did not want her to go. Harriet instead accepted an assignment to serve as a missionary teacher among the Cheyenne at the Whirlwind Mission in Oklahoma, founded by another Episcopal saint, Deacon David Pendleton “Making Medicine” Oakerhater.

Harriet Bedell worked in Oklahoma for nine years, then in 1916 was sent to Alaska where her teaching skills were deeply needed. She served in Stevens Village just 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle ministering to and with the Athabascan people, sometimes even traveling by dogsled to villages even more remote. During her last years in Alaska, Bedell opened a boarding school for children who were unable to access education. During this time she was finally set apart as a deaconess in 1922. However, Alaska was not to be her life’s work. In the depths of the Great Depression, the boarding school was in dire need of funding. Harriet returned to New York in 1931 to plead for financial contributions that were never promised. The school closed, and Harriet never returned to Alaska. 

Unsure of where God was calling her, she agreed to embark on a speaking tour. She traveled to Flordia in 1933 to speak about her missionary experiences and while there visited a Seminole Indian reservation in the southern part of the state. The living conditions appalled Harriet Bedell. She quickly decided to move into the Blade Cross Mission, where she lived for the next thirty years. Using her own salary, she worked to reopen the Glade Cross Mission in Everglades City and a new mission in Collier City. Her ministry focused on physical health and education, but also reviving traditional Seminole crafts such as doll-making, basket-weaving, and intricate patchwork designs that could then be sold to improve the economy of the Glade Cross Mission.

A cursory reading of Harriet Bedell makes it appear that she embraced a colonialist missionary approach. She was a white woman from a prominent New York family living with and ministering to indigenous populations Unlike so most missionaries of this era, Harriet really did seem to believe her ministry was one of economic empowerment, education, and health care rather than religious conversion.

She held a deep respect for the people she served, including their ways of life and beliefs. She drove an average of 20,000 miles per year visiting Seminole households, checking on their needs, and sharing meals. Though officially forced to retire in 1943, Bedell continued ministering with compassion and empathy in Florida for another twenty years until a hurricane wiped out her home and the Glades Cross Mission. The Diocese of Southwest Florida has long celebrated Harriet Bedell Day on January 8, the anniversary of her death in 1969.

I keep thinking about Harriet’s mother, who refused to bless Harriet’s desire to serve as an international missionary. I wonder how many young, single women at the turn of the 20th century would have defied their parents. I wonder how many would have taken the path of least resistance and kept teaching in a traditional classroom near home.

Harriet found a creative solution that honored her personal calling and also her mother’s request. Without ever leaving the country, she spent two-thirds of her life living in indigenous communities—learning from them, ministering with them, and forming friendships she carried until her final breath.