-
CHAPTER 2. Mistress of the Parsonage: The Role of the Itinerant’s Wife
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Notes to chapter 2 start on page 249 37 THE wives of most Protestant ministers shared many experiences. A minister’s wife frequently held a distinctive place in local society, and was looked upon not only by members of her husband’s congregation but often by herself, as being a helper to his ministry. One factor, however , set Methodist ministers’ wives apart from those of other denominations , who often remained for years, even for decades, in the same community. That was the itinerancy: Methodist ministers moved frequently . The frequency of the moves and the impact on their families changed during the century and a half covered by this study, and also the expectations and realities of the lives of ministers’ wives shifted during that time. Of course each woman expressed her individuality within her unique situation. Nevertheless the itinerancy gave the lives of Methodist ministers’ wives certain commonalities. In his broad study of ministers’ wives in the United States, Leonard Sweet was able to present rich portraits of a few women whose lives are richly documented.1 Few Canadian Methodist mistresses of the parsonage can be painted on so large a canvas, but many small sketches help to compensate for that limitation. The sources, of course, are not without problems. Only rarely do they display the candour found in the 1874 obituary of Sarah Huntingdon, written by John Carroll: “She was by no means faultless; but if, after her early guides, step-father, brother, husband were no more, her outspoken frankness, straightforwardness, and energy, sometimes assumed the appearance of acerbity, under the trials, not to say wrongs, which marked some part of her latter years, it must not be forgotten that she was also genial, true, and benevolent.”2 In more cases, the biographical sketches range from laudatory sentimentality to downright hagiography. Yet even when they lack critical perspective , they show which virtues society particularly valued, allowing Mistress of the Parsonage: The Role of the Itinerant’s Wife CHAPTER 2 the reader to reconstruct the ideals of the time, even though it may not be possible to determine how well the women incarnated these lofty standards. There are also silences that are simultaneously frustrating and significant. Both the biographical and the autobiographical narratives describing Methodism’s heroic ministers often take for granted the role—often a heroic role—played by their wives. The story told by John Semmens of his journey to the mission station at Norway House, on Lake Winnipeg, in 1884 is particularly striking: “The captain did not wish to call at Norway House at all as his cargo was all for Grand Rapids, but he was prevailed upon to make Warren’s Landing his first place of call. Arriving there we engaged a York Boat to convey us to our Mission twenty-six miles away. We travelled all night and took possession of our new home at 9 a.m. the following morning. Goods were unpacked in short order and the house was put in shape. Proper help was engaged, and at 4 o’clock the same evening, Percy Keagy Semmens , our fourth son, was born. The Providence over us had again been kind and large.”3 John Semmens’s wife, Helen Calista Behimer, is completely absent from the narrative. Thus it leaves intriguing but unanswerable questions about her feelings regarding this remarkable journey, and indicates the focus that her husband, and presumably his readers, found appropriate. Marriage and the Itinerancy In the early decades of North American Methodism, attitudes toward the marriage of circuit riders were ambivalent. This ambivalence reflected the equivocal attitudes of John and Charles Wesley, and found expression in the firm preference of Francis Asbury for unmarried preachers.4 Methodist preachers were itinerants, and in the pioneering era in North America, the usefulness of the itinerancy was that preachers could range far and wide, supported to a great extent by the hospitality of householders who fed and sheltered them. When an itinerant married, not only he, but also his wife and children, regularly packed up and moved whenever he was reassigned, and frequently, he had to leave his family for days or even weeks at a time as he travelled to discharge his responsibilities. Those who found this unduly burdensome were forced to “locate,” becoming local preachers who farmed or plied a trade to support their families. In his study of early American Methodism, Russell Richey has identified marriage, farming, and ill health as three things that “damaged itinerancy.”5 38 THE LEGACY...