Baptist women on the frontier: a panel.

Baptist women had vital roles in settling and Christianizing the Texas frontier They participated in building schools and churches, and spreading the gospel. The following articles focus on the work of Mina Everett and Elli Moore Townsend, two hard-working, committed women who contributed much to Baptist work in Texas.

Mina S. Everett: A Frontier Missionary

Rosalie Beck

In 1885, thirty-one-year-old Mina S. Everett gave her life to Christ in Dublin, Texas. Standing less than five feet tall, and weighing less than eighty pounds, Mina never did anything by halves (1) She spent the rest of her adult life as a missionary in frontier situations, establishing missions organizations, churches, and schools in Texas, Brazil, Kansas, New Mexico, Mexico City, Colorado, and California. This paper will focus on her work in Texas from 1887 through 1896.

The First Single Woman SBC Missionary to the Western Hemisphere

Mina's life was filled with "firsts." She awakened to the need for missions in 1885 while attending the dedication of the Monterey Baptist Church, the first Baptist church building in Mexico. When she returned home, Mina established a frugal monthly budget for herself. She then sold almost everything she owned, including her horse Prince, and gave the money to support Texas missionaries. (2) A. T. Hawthorne, the Foreign Mission Board [FMB] representative, contacted Mina when he heard of her activities and asked her, "Why not you be the missionary and let us support you?" (3) In answering the question, Mina made a lifetime commitment to missions.

Later that year, Mina sailed for Brazil as the first single woman missionary appointed by the FMB in the western hemisphere. Ill health plagued her from the time she arrived in Brazil until she departed less than eighteen months later. She contracted yellow fever and beriberi, and more than once the doctors gave her no hope of survival. Finally, in 1887, Mina returned to the United States to recuperate. (4) She fully intended to return to Brazil, but the FMB physician, Dr. Matthews, judged her too frail to survive in a tropical climate.

Even though deeply saddened by her inability to work in Brazil, Mina's commitment to missions remained strong. She decided to work with Hawthorne to raise money for missions in Texas. As soon as physically able, Mina began a series of speaking engagements throughout the state. Texas Baptist leaders, like J. M. Carroll, realized quickly that Mina was an effective speaker, and it was not unusual for a church or association to double their normal missions offering in response to her messages. (5)

The First Paid Missionary to Hispanics in Texas

In 1888, after attending the Southern Baptist Convention [SBC] in Richmond, Virginia, and representing Texas women in the formation of the Woman's Missionary Union--another first for her--Mina received appointment as the first paid missionary in Texas to work with Hispanic people. This appointment also made her the first woman missionary hired by the Baptist General Convention of Texas [BGCT] State Mission Board. (6)

Mina lived and worked in San Antonio, establishing churches and industrial training schools among the 10,000 Hispanic residents. She joined the Spanish Baptist church and helped speed the church's entry into the San Antonio Association.

The First Speaking Engagement During Worship

Mina continued to raise funds for missions. She worked on the frontier between acceptable behavior for a Baptist woman in the late 1800s and behavior that created barriers between herself and a congregation Before Mina left Brazil, a pastor's wife said to her, "[P]lead on behalf of our country every time you have opportunity." In her memoirs, Mina wrote, "There might have been many opportunities in which to grant the request but in that day a woman must not plead in a Baptist church for a people in darkness when men were present." (7)

Mina wrestled with the issue of speaking to mixed groups. On one occasion, she was scheduled to speak at the Honey Grove Baptist Church. Usually Mina arrived the day before she spoke to ensure everything was in order, but she could not get to Honey Grove until the Sunday she was to speak. When the pastor met her at the train station, he told Mina that she was to speak at the worship time to the entire congregation. She had never spoken in a worship service to both men and women. She spent the morning in prayer, eventually deciding it would not displease God "nor do violence to Scripture" for her to "bring Brazil's need and lay it at the door of these people who are anxious to hear." (8) Mina was never comfortable speaking to mixed groups, but she continued to do so until her time in Texas ended.

Dangerous Episodes on the Frontier

Physical danger is often associated with a frontier situation, and Mina's life in Texas was fraught with peril. She traveled as much as possible by train, but many Texas communities were not on train routes. When asked to speak at the Baptist church in Carrizo Springs, she caught a ride on a freight wagon. The July sun was scorching, and the driver got lost. When they finally arrived at the church, Mina passed out and fell from the wagon. One of the members of the welcoming committee was a doctor. He treated her for sunstroke and said that thirty more minutes in the sun would have ended her life. (9)

Another perilous incident occurred at a camp meeting near San Marcos. A young woman named Anastacia requested baptism, but her mother was not in agreement with this request. The angry mother swore she would kill her daughter and even pulled out a knife. Fortunately, a bystander took the knife from her. The mother then cursed and disowned her daughter. The baptismal service took place, and following her baptism, Anastacia received a marriage proposal, and eventually married the young man who proposed. Mina later wrote of this incident, "The Lord always provides when we trust." (10)

The First Corresponding Secretary and Organizer for the Texas Baptist WMU

As the 1889 BGCT meeting approached, Baptist leaders like Fannie Breedlove Davis spoke with Mina about becoming the corresponding secretary and organizer for the Baptist Woman's Mission Workers [WMU]. In this role, Mina would travel throughout the state establishing mission organizations, training women to lead the groups, and raising funds for missions. No one had done this before, but the state leaders knew Mina could do it. In October 1889, Mina accepted the offer and became the first paid woman staff worker for WMU in any state. (11) Mina received $25 each month from the Foreign Mission Board, the Home Mission Board, and the Texas State Mission Board. She calculated, however, that she could live on $50, so she returned $25 of her salary each month. If she became ill and could not work for a week, she sent back a proportionate amount of her salary because she was unable to fulfill her responsibilities. (12)

Mina worked as the corresponding secretary and organizer for Texas Baptist women until 1896. Her work became increasingly difficult because of her high profile position. Mina's employment with the state and Southern Baptist Convention boards ended because of her willingness to speak to mixed audiences in an effort to raise support for and consciousness of missions. Through her time as a BGCT employee, some powerful pastors criticized her "forwardness" in speaking to both men and women.

One of Mina's critics was B. H. Carroll, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church, Waco, and founder of the Baylor University religion department and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Although First Baptist Church had women deacons, in Carroll's public statements he did not support women in ministry. He and Mina publicly discussed whether women should receive training for missionary service and whether they should organize for missionary support. Mina felt strongly that women should receive training and encouraged the SBC WMU to build a training center at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Carroll had reservations in general about training women missionaries, and he did not want the SBC to build such a center. Carroll and Mina also disagreed on how much women should organize for mission support.

Carroll chaired the State Missions Board in 1895. That year Mina was forbidden by the board to speak in public meetings, because such action was unseemly for a woman. (13) Mina's willingness to address audiences composed of both men and women had antagonized too many powerful pastors.

Mina also faced opposition from some WMU leaders, including Mary Gambrell, Lucinda White, and Fannie Breedlove Davis. These women wanted the position of corresponding secretary and organizer for the Baptist Woman's Mission Workers to become a permanent position in the structure of the BGCT. But the women leaders knew that the board would not support such a position if Mina might be given the job. In order to argue that a permanent position for women's work was necessary to raise mission money in Texas, the women asked Mine to leave the state. With her gone, the leaders could argue for the principle of the need without being accused of only wanting the position because of their love and respect for Mina. (14) Reluctantly, but because she believed it was best for Texas, Mine left.

Conclusion

Mina established a pioneer's list of firsts during her time in Texas. She left the state in 1896 because she believed her departure would aid mission work in the state. Later, she reflected on this event and the criticism she bore for speaking on behalf of missions, "God blessed time after time the very thing that some counted a wrong--The great wrong I was charged with during the years of my work in Texas." (15)

Mina Everett succeeded in many areas of her frontier work, but she crashed on the ministry barrier between genders in Victorian Texas. She always believed that one day no barriers would separate God's people in their work for and worship of the Lord. After explaining her decision to leave Texas, Mina ended a letter to a friend with her assessment of God's view of crossing frontiers: "You can never know what I am leaving in this beloved land. But true friendship and love in the Lord is eternal and there will be a reunion in the land that has no boundary lines between the people of God."

(1.) Mina S. Everett, "Recollections," J. M. Carroll Collection, File 273, Baptist General Convention of Texas Historical Collection, Dallas, TX, 4. Everett handwrote this short autobiography in 1921 at the request of Texas Baptist leader J. M. Carroll.

(2.) Ibid., 6-7.

(3.) Ibid., 7.

(4.) "Return of Rev. Z. C. Taylor and Wife, and Miss Everett, of Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 18 (March 1887): 1.

(5.) "Reports from the States," Foreign Mission Journal 21 (June 1890): 3.

(6.) A. J. Holt, "Miss Mina S. Everett," Texas Baptist and Herald 37 (August 8, 1888): 4.

(7.) Everett, "Recollections," 15.

(8.) Ibid., 16-18.

(9.) Ibid., 27.

(10.) Ibid., 20-21.

(11.) "General Convention," Texas Baptist and Herald 39 (October 9, 1889): 5.

(12.) Everett, "Recollections," 24.

(13.) Mina Everett, Letter to Olivia Davis, 14 September 1934. Texas Woman's Missionary Union Fries, Box Q, Mina Everett Correspondence File, Archives, Baptist General Convention of Texas Historical Collection, Dallas, Tex.

(14.) Mina Everett, Letter to [E. C.] Everett, 26 September 1896. Baptist General Convention of Texas Historical Collection, File 566, Dallas, Tex.

(15.) Everett, "Recollections," 18.

Rosalie Beck is associate professor in the Department of Religion, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Elli Moore Townsend

Portia Sikes McKown

Frontiers have been with us since the Garden of Eden. It is what a person does with a frontier that makes her or breaks her, or gives her a vision for a life's work of serving others. To some, a frontier is like climbing a mountain. It is to be conquered because it is there. For others, a frontier may be where one is, and self-preservation is the all-consuming driving force. For Elli Moore Townsend, the frontier was the spark that lit the torch to serve others.

Elli was a remarkable, visionary pioneer, who always lived on the edge of the frontier in her heart, her mind, and her soul. She was definitely a woman ahead of her time and a legend in her own time. She not only carried the torch of educating young women, but she passed it on. She worked diligently, tirelessly, intensely, sacrificially, and with great integrity "to help girls of ambition and limited funds to get an education," (1) to promote "systematic Bible studies," (2) and to establish financial assistance for those girls in need. She gave abundantly, to the point of sacrifice, of everything she had, including money, talent, time, and love to her life's work.

Childhood: Revealing, If Not Prophetic

To understand Elli's driving ambition and strong character, a quick look at her early childhood is revealing, if not prophetic. Elliza Cummins Moore was born in 1860 at Ruterville, Texas, while the state was still a member of the Confederacy. Elli's father, William Bowen Moore, whom she adored, was a Civil War captain and plantation owner. Even though Moore was a respected and powerful captain, he seemed to shrink from "robust people, especially his highly-vitalized wife and his own father, old Colonel John Henry Moore." (3)

Elliza, who changed her name to Elli, (4) had opportunity to interact with these highly vitalized people. Her mother, Indiana Keys Moore, was a college dropout who married at seventeen but instilled in her five daughters at early ages the desire to "become educated, useful and worthy women." (5) Indiana sacrificed dearly and borrowed money to pay for her five daughters' college education, and all five of them were in college at the same time. (6)

Elli's Grandfather Moore, who was commander-in-chief of the Texas forces at the Battle of Gonzales, observed that she had "a distinguishing characteristic of her whole being, an intensity--a high-powered focus that seemed to concentrate the thoughts of everyone in her group." (7) These qualities and her intelligence, strong character, education, and a love for God would give Elli the strength and confidence to carry out her vision of educating poor girls.

Education

Elli enrolled in Baylor Female College in 1876, a "bright, strong-willed girl of fourteen, and graduated as a rather mature seventeen-year-old." (8) She returned to her father's plantation to teach the country children for a year before going to Philadelphia to study music, art, and elocution. (9) While there, her beloved Grandfather Moore died, and she returned home. While she was home, J. H. Luther, president of Baylor Female College, invited her to teach at the college, and her true pioneering experience on the frontier of a woman's college began. (10)

The State of Texas and Baylor University

"The infant Republic of Texas did not have much time or energy to offer to the cause of education. Organized religious denominations did not fare much better." (11)

Struggle was ever present--acute danger of Indian attacks in many places, ever-present possibility that Mexico would try to reclaim the lost territory, the nation would succumb to bankruptcy or internal strife. Nevertheless, the citizens of Texas had already come too far and achieved too much to fail to establish Texas as a cultured, educated, and Christian member of the family of nations. (12)

In 1845, Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, signed the charter for Baylor University at Independence with a Female Department. Thus, Baylor and the state of Texas were instituted a month apart, and they grew up together. These simultaneous beginnings had an impact on education in Texas.

Baylor Female College in Belton

Baylor University began classes in 1846 with twenty-four students, both men and women, and operated out of one old building on a shoestring budget. (13) In 1866, the female department of Baylor was granted its own charter and became the Baylor Female College. By the mid-1880s, the declining population due to the railroad bypassing Independence and dissension over the male and female departments led the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) to consolidate Baylor and Waco Universities in Waco and to move the female college to Belton. (14) The BGCT allowed that all properties of Baylor Female College were to remain behind under the control of the Union Association. (15) In 1886, Baylor Female College President J. H. Luther with his wife, Annie, their children, and some African American servants and their families, loaded up wagons and carriages and traveled to Belton. The town welcomed them with open arms. (16) Under construction at the time of their arrival was a "magnificent white stone building with arched porticos and the acclamation that it was the finest academic building in Texas." (17) Other than the building, the school had few assets. Luther literally took nothing with him to start the college, and he was faced with supplying all the needed materials. The meager financial situation led Luther to refuse to accept a salary, but he managed to support his family on money left over from expenses for the college. (18)

According to Leon McBeth, "No social institution suffered more from the Civil War than the colleges; many closed never to open again. However, at the end of Reconstruction, the Baptist colleges had a new surge of life." (19) Baylor Female College was one of the colleges that survived. It has been in continuous operation since 1845, though not without its problems and has changed its name several times. (20) During Luther's administration, 1886-91, the school did experience a "new surge of life." The college grew and stabilized, and by 1891 enrolled some three hundred students. (21)

Legendary Elli Moore Townsend: "Work to Do"

Much credit for the growth and stability of Baylor Female College can be given to Elli Moore Townsend. Elli returned to her alma mater in 1881 as principal and presiding teacher, remaining in that position for twelve years. (22) At some point during her tenure, she became very ill and was told that she might not live more than six months, but she let her family and friends know that "she could not die because she had work to do." (23) And work she did.

Many of her great ideas met with even greater resistance, or complications, but nothing would stop the strong-willed Elli. As a twenty-one-year-old teacher, she requested and received authorization from the trustees to solicit funds for a new roof for Luther Hall. While she was trusted to raise the funds, and she did, she was not trusted to disperse them. The minutes from a trustee meeting reveal that a male committee was appointed "to help Miss Moore in the disbursement of funds collected by her." (24) Even so, Elli continued in her fund-raising activities. Trustee meeting minutes of July 7, 1883, commended her and another alumnae for their work in having a rooming house donated, repaired, and moved onto campus at no cost. These minutes also report that Miss E. C. Moore attended the meeting "as proxy for L. L. Carroll, President of the Board of Trustees," marking the first time a woman had attended a meeting of the board in an official capacity. (25)

Cottage Home System: A Bold Idea

Elli's burning passion was "to help girls of ambition and limited funds to get an education." (26) Yet, Texans were dealing with great difficulties: extreme weather conditions, hardscrabble land, loneliness, sometimes warring Indians, and some belligerent neighbors in Mexico. (27) Survival was the primary goal of most Texan women.

   The women who came to this wild, new country became partners
   in the struggle for survival. They taught their children to
   read the Bible by candlelight, and to read Indian tracks by
   daylight. Most of the women assumed the traditional role of
   womankind, that of raising children, feeding families, providing
   spiritual and emotional nourishment.... They learned to load and
   shoot guns, plow fields, tan skins, sleep lightly. Most had left
   comparative luxury behind for a chance to help tame the new
   frontier. Endurance, strength and courage were still required
   after independence was won. Many a pioneer woman [including Elli]
   had left a finishing-school background and the comforts of
   plantation life for the frontier. (28)

Education outside of the home was not a priority for these women; there was little, if any money available for education, and parents discouraged their daughters from thinking about going to college.

   They were afraid their daughters would be unattractive to men
   if they were educated and might even render them unfit as
   mothers and wives. Girls of wealth were allowed to and limited
   to pursue cultural accomplishments like playing the piano, drawing
   likenesses, or embroidering doilies. It is a wonder that a college
   for women, like Baylor Female College, would develop before the
   Civil War in 1845 and would provide educational opportunities for
   poor girls at the turn of the century. It was due largely to the
   faith, patience and perseverance of Elli Moore. (29)

Despite the prevailing attitudes against female education, Elli devised a plan for providing a college education for poor, but deserving young women. Her plan was to build a Cottage Home, in which the women could live while they worked to earn the money needed to pay their college expenses. In the 1890s, her ideas were extraordinary. Providing a college education for women was a bold departure even in New England and older southern states, (30) but Elli felt it was "equally important that they should be placed under the best influences of a well regulated Christian Home while getting this education." (31)

At first, Elli was unable to obtain support or financial backing for such a radical plan as building a Cottage Home. In 1888, she asked the college for permission to build this cooperative living house on campus. The trustees refused to grant permission. (32) A sympathetic trustee, however, offered her a lot of land west of campus and only charged her half its value. He arranged easy payment terms, and using her small personal savings, Elli enlisted carpenters to build a rustic, basic cottage using donated lumber. The cottage had three bedrooms (four girls to a room), a kitchen, and a sitting room. Curtains hung across wires in the corners for closets, boxes were used for washstands and to hold clothing and personal items, and shuck mattresses were provided as beds. The cottage became home to twelve young women, and it served as a sign of a covenant Miss Elli had made with God. (33)

In the early years in Belton, conditions at Baylor Female College were stark, and rules were rigid. College was not for the faint hearted but only for the "ambitious," as Elli called them. Among the rules was the requirement that all students keep their own financial accounts, remain on campus during Christmas, report any violations of rules, cook, keep house, do chores, milk cows, tend the garden, study, and attend all classes.

Elli's strong belief in being a good student of the Bible was evident in the rule requiring the girls to memorize Psalm 37, the Ten Commandments, and the Beatitudes and to write a brief outline of Bible History. (34) She continually emphasized the importance of planned Bible study during her seventy years at Baylor Female College and "was influential in getting a resolution passed by the denominational convention introducing Bible study into the women's programs of the South." (35)

Elli's early version of the present-day work-study program resulted in all the money earned for work by the women students going toward their college expenses, which amounted to $108 per year. (36) One student, Betty Payne Huber of the class of 1952, earned thirty-five cents an hour answering correspondence for Elli. Elli, however, not only provided work for the young women, she often gave of her own money to ensure that they were able to stay in school. Huber noted, "Several times I did not have the money to finish out the semester, and she generously paid the balance." (37)

When the financial situation became strained at the school in 1893, Elli's creativity surfaced again as she took her silver jewel box of medals, heirloom jewelry, and childhood mementos straight to the bank. She persuaded the bank president to hold the box and contents as collateral for a loan, or until he could profitably dispose of the jewelry. Elli then bought groceries and took them "home" to her students. (38) Times may have been very tough, but the young women were in college, and "they knew that God and Miss Elli were with them." (39)

Education at Baylor Female College was not restricted to young women of limited means. Elli also worked so that African Americans could receive a good education. After she married Rev. E. G. Townsend in 1899, the couple "helped several Negro boys and girls get their education. Some of the children were grandchildren of her father's slaves, and they had located near Baylor College. All Mrs. Townsend would say about how much or how many they helped was, "'Whenever one needed to go to school, we helped all we could.'" (40)

Following her marriage to Townsend, who was dean, Bible teacher and interim president of the college, the couple worked diligently on the cottage system and eventually a total of seven cottages were built. Marg-Riette Montgomery, in her book Ten Thousand Texas Daughters, credits Elli with helping 10,000 gifts receive a college education by way of the Cottage Home System. (41)

In addition to the cottages, two additional permanent dormitory-style buildings were eventually added to the campus, Ely-Pepper Hall and Ruth Stribling Hall. The Townsends were instrumental in raising the money for these dormitories. During their tenure at the college, Elli and her husband raised $250,000 for the school. They also left their estate to provide scholarships on basis of need and scholarly promise and had a scholarship established in their honor. The scholarship continues to provide financial assistance to this date, and the campus library, Townsend Library, was named after Elli Moore Townsend and her husband, E. G. Townsend. (42)

In the early 1990s, the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor, which is now the name of the Baylor Female College, received over $1 million from the estate of Corrine Remschel, an alumna and former public school teacher. The money was given because of Elli's inspirational work. The story of Elli selling her jewels to buy food for the young women in the Cottage Home led Remschel to donate her money to the school, and today Remschel Residence Hall serves as a reminder of the work and commitment of Elli Moore Townsend. (43)

Conclusion

Elli Moore Townsend was an incredible lady. Strong-willed and determined from youth, she set out to help educate young women. Her establishment of the Cottage Home System, considered a forerunner of the modern work study program in college, enabled young women to work in exchange for college tuition and expenses.

Elli's work was "on the frontier." She dealt with the extremes of frontier life, including the extremes that were remnants of wars involving the Republic of Texas and the Civil War and the extremes in attitudes about educating women and their place in society. She gave sacrificially of her own personal means and even her health. She was an intense woman and fulfilled her mother's admonition to become an "educated, useful and worthy woman." She had an unquenchable and persevering spirit, devoting more than seventy years of her life to college girls at Baylor Female College.

A wonderful quote by the American Statesman, Daniel Webster, sums up Elli's life: "If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with just fear of God and love of our fellowman, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten to all eternity." (44)

(1.) Bess Whitehead Scott, You Meet Such Interesting People (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1989), 49.

(2.) Marg-Riette Montgomery, Ten Thousand Texas Daughters: The Intimate Life Story of Mrs. Elli Moore Townsend (San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1950), 165. This true story was written by a student for whom Elli Townsend was a mentor. At Elli's request, the college and the college presidents' names were fictionalized to stress the importance of Christian education. All facts are substantiated through other sources used in this paper.

(3.) Ibid., 4.

(4.) Ibid., 66. Elliza changed her name to Elli because all of her female cousins had been named Elliza and she wanted to be set apart from them.

(5.) Elli Moore Townsend and Student League and Alumnae Association of Baylor College, After Seventy-Five Years (Belton, Tex.: Baylor College, 1920), 182.

(6.) Ibid.

(7.) Montgomery, Ten Thousand Texas Daughters, 1.

(8.) Elinor James, Forth From Her Portals: The First 100 Years in Belton (Belton: University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 1986), 35-36.

(9.) Ibid., 36.

(10.) Ibid.

(11.) Ibid., 1.

(12.) Ibid.

(13.) University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Sesquicentennial 1845-1995 (Belton: University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 1995), 3.

(14.) Stewart Smith, "The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor: 1854," in Jerry E. Dawson and John W. Storey, eds. Teaching Them ... A Sesquicentennial Celebration of Texas Baptist Education (Dallas, Tex.: Baptist General Convention of Texas, 1996), 22.

(15.) James, Forth From Her Portals, 13.

(16.) University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Sesquicentennial, 9.

(17.) Ibid.

(18.) Ibid.

(19.) H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 443.

(20.) The other names are Baylor Female College (1866), Baylor College for Women (1925), Mary Hardin-Baylor (1934), and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (1978).

(21.) University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Sesquicentennial, 9.

(22.) Belton (Texas) Journal (December 10, 1953).

(23.) Belton (Texas) Journal. Undated newspaper article from the Townsend files in the Alumni Office on the Campus of University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

(24.) James, Forth From Her Portals, 36.

(25.) Ibid.

(26.) Scott, You Meet Such Interesting People, 49.

(27.) Patricia Lasher and Beverly Bentley, Texas Women: Interviews and Images (Austin, Tex.: Shoal Creek Publishers, Inc., 1980), xiii-xvi.

(28.) Ibid.

(29.) James, Forth From Her Portals, 37.

(30.) Ibid.

(31.) Elli Moore Townsend, The Cottage Home: First Decade From 1893-1903 (Belton: Baylor College, 1904), 1.

(32.) James, Forth From Her Portals, 38.

(33.) Ibid.

(34.) Ibid.

(35.) Montgomery, Ten Thousand Texas Daughters, 165.

(36.) Elli Moore Townsend, The Cottage Home at Baylor College: Information and Rules (Belton: Baylor College, 1904), 9-10.

(37.) Statement of Betty Huber Payne, personal interview, Fall 2002.

(38.) James, Forth From Her Portals, 40.

(39.) University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Sesquicentennial, 16.

(40.) Montgomery, Ten Thousand Texas Daughters, 182.

(41.) Ibid.

(42.) Ibid., 16.

(43.) Ibid., 57.

(44.) Daniel Webster, speech, Boston, Massachusetts, 30 September 1842. He gave this speech at a reception on his return to Boston after the Negotiation of the Treaty of Washington.

Portia Sikes McKown was a beneficiary of Elli Townsend's work study program. McKown graduated in 1965 from Mary Hardin-Baylor (Baylor Female college). While a student, she worked on campus to earn tuition money and lived in Ely-Pepper and Stribling Halls.

Portia Sikes McKown is assistant director of Student Advising and Retention, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Belton, Texas.