As I have described in other essays, Mary Christine De Bardeleben felt a call to missionary work. The call apparently came while she was teaching with Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School in 1901-1902, after she had completed her work at the University of Alabama, and before she attended Teachers College, Columbia University in 1902-1903. Initially, she felt that the call was to go to Japan as a Methodist missionary. At age 20, she was too young to qualify as a missionary. At that point in time, the Methodist Training School had not yet been organized, and apparently it was some other agency that determined the she was too young. After receiving a degree from Teachers College at Columbia, she returned to La Place, the place of her birth in rural Macon County, Alabama. There, she taught all twelve grades in a one room school. And on a Christmas Eve, a traumatic announcement by her Uncle who was managing the farm on which she was living that all Negroes on the place were intoxicated, she felt a call to mission work among Blacks in the south.
She was still persevering in her call to mission work. The Methodist Training School was apparently organized in Nashville in 1906, under the auspices of the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. We will never know when she communicated her desire to do missionary work among Blacks in the South to the school. Apparently, she had made this decision before her acceptance. We will never know if such an iconoclastic idea delayed her admission to the training school. Apparently, all we will ever know in this regard is what Katharine Tyson said in the Alabama Journal on January 6, 1960 after she interviewed Miss Dee. It is my guess that the award of life membership in WSCS by the Alabama West Florida Conference on June 2, that same year was somehow related to the interview with Katharine Tyson. In any event, both events occurred over 50 years after Miss Dee was admitted to the Methodist Training School in Nashville in 1908. Unfortunately, the account by Tyson is not totally accurate. She reported that after completing her work at the University of Alabama, Miss Dee “had further study at Columbia where she got a BS in education from Teachers College; and her Masters at Peabody, she returned to Shorter to teach in a one room school.” Miss Dee actually finished at Columbia in 1903, and likely returned to Shorter to teach, but shedid not receive the degree from Peabody until 1921. I have summarized the likely time table for the events above, and analyzed them carefully in an earlier essay in this series.
It is a credit to her perseverance that Miss Dee was eventually accepted for missionary training in 1908. Ms. Tyson reported:
“All but one member of the faculty insisted that she train for the orient. This one, a Field Work Supervisor, understood Miss De Bardeleben’s feelings about working in her own country, and assigned her to a Negro church to teach the Bible to women. As the days went by, she became more enthralled with her project, and stood her ground about remaining in America to teach.” No doubt, the one faculty member who supported Miss Dee’s plan was Miss Estelle Haskin, whom I discuss later.
So, Miss Dee began missionary training in 1908. As always, she was an exceptional student. In 1926, while teaching in Norman Oklahoma, Miss Dee requested and received a transcript of her credits from Methodist Training School. I have not figured out the purpose of the request. By 1926, the Methodist Training School had merged into Scarritt College for Christion Workers. The organization into which it merged began as Scarritt Bible and Training School in Kansas City Missouri in 1892. That organization moved from Missouri to Nashville in 1924. The letter transmitting the transcript to Miss Dee is from J. M. Sullen, Registrar of Scarritt College for Christian Workers. The letter was in Miss Dee’s box, together with a hand written transcript.
There were actually two hand written versions of the transcript, listing courses and grades. It is possible that one or both were copied from a more formal transcript which may have been delivered to someone for whatever purpose it was requested. The hand written documents indicate that Miss Dee’s courses in the Methodist Training School included Sociology, Christian Doctrine, Applied Methods, Home Conduct, Old Testament History, Prophets, Apostolic Age, Epistles, Church History, Public Speaking, Domestic Science, and Bible reading. She scored 90 or higher in all but two of the courses, and 88 ½ and 89 ½ on those two. The focus was clearly on knowledge of the Christian Religion and the Church. There is little other information about her actual work in the Training School, but Miss Dee obviously did quite well in the training school.
The box containing Miss Dee’s “stuff” that I examined included a picture of the Methodist Training School Class of 1910. Miss Dee is pictured as one of the students.
Miss Dee finished missionary training in Nashville in 1910. The treasures in Miss Dee’s box also included accounts of the deaths of two of the people whose pictures appear as faculty: Sara Estelle Haskin and Kate Hackney. The box included two larger copies of the picture of Miss Hackney. However, the picture for the class, and both copies of the picture that I found in the box all appear to be the same photograph. Miss Dee had written on the back of one of the pictures, “Kate Hackney many years missionary to China” and on the other, “Kate Hackney, missionary to China many years.”
The information in the box clearly indicated that Miss Dee stayed in touch with Estelle Haskin and Kate Hackney for as long as they lived. Miss Haskin died in 1940, and Miss Hackney in 1946. The box included a personal letter from Miss Hackney’s sister, giving details about Miss Hackney’s death in 1946. Like Miss Dee, she had attended Columbia, and additional information may justify a separate essay. Miss Dee’s relationship with Estelle Haskin definitely justifies its own essay in this series, which I will provide.
Miss Dee was intent on missionary work to Blacks in the south. After she completed the training course in 1910, Miss Dee became a member of the faculty at the Methodist training school for the year 1910-1911. She worked with Estelle Haskin on missionary work with Blacks in Nashville, while serving on the faculty. I suspect that she was training for her own mission to Blacks, and awaiting official approval of that effort. She finally got approval to engage in missionary work to Blacks in Augusta, Georgia, as reported by reporter Tyson in the 1960 Alabama Journal article. In 1911, Miss Dee’s long-standing relationship with the Women’s Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church South began. She was granted her wish for missionary work with Blacks in the south, and assigned to missionary work in Augusta Georgia.
No doubt the presence of Paine College in Augusta led to the decision to start the work there. Not only did she establish a “settlement” house there—she also became a part of the faculty of Paine College, which appears to have had a significant impact on the development of her career. Students and faculty at Paine College were instrumental, and a very necessary part of the plan that led to the establishment of what came to be known as the Bethlehem House. The fact that the work was under the auspices of the Women’s Missionary Council provided a structure for her long-lasting relationship with Miss Estelle Haskin.
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