Sarah Doremus
Title
Sarah Doremus
Subject
Sarah Doremus
Description
Sarah Platt Haines Doremus: a mission minded, ecumenical leader (1802-1877)
Is one person able to make a difference?
Certainly! Sarah Doremus is a perfect example of that.
The wife of an elder in the South Church in New York City and mother of nine children, she was also an ecumenicist, a mission supporter and organizer, and a fund raiser. She may well be the most remarkable laywoman in all U.S. history.
David Abeel sought her out for assistance in supporting his missionary work and she was instrumental in establishing the Society for Promoting Female Education in China and the Far East. This new society was the first Protestant woman’s missionary society to support independent missionary work outside the United States. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions soon asked them to defer their work--perhaps out of a fear of competing in fund raising. Abeel was saddened that this first effort in the U.S. had to end.
Sarah continued to work on mission projects of an ecumenical nature and in February, 1861, the first women’s society in the U.S. dedicated to sending and supporting women missionaries was established as the Women’s Union Missionary Society for Heathen Lands. Sarah helped organize it and served as its president until her death in 1877.
If that was her only contribution to the life and ministry of the church, it would be fantastic. She did more than that. She also began holding Sunday services in the city prison in New York in the 1830s and she was the first director of the Women’s Prison Association. She was an avid needle worker and much of her embroidery and needlework was sold to benefit missions. She was instrumental in the opening of the Women’s Hospital in 1855; founded the New York House and School of Industry; and helped found the Nursery and Child’s Hospital; she served on the boards of the City Mission and Tract Society and the City Bible Society.
At her memorial service it was stated that she “gave the whole of herself to the Lord; the whole of herself to the church; the whole of herself to every suffering heart she met, and yet the whole of herself to her home and children.”
See Una Ratmeyer, Hands, Hearts, and Voices: Women Who Followed God’s Call; Mrs. W. I. (Mary) Chamberlain, Fifty Years in Foreign Fields; R. Pierce Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America.
Is one person able to make a difference?
Certainly! Sarah Doremus is a perfect example of that.
The wife of an elder in the South Church in New York City and mother of nine children, she was also an ecumenicist, a mission supporter and organizer, and a fund raiser. She may well be the most remarkable laywoman in all U.S. history.
David Abeel sought her out for assistance in supporting his missionary work and she was instrumental in establishing the Society for Promoting Female Education in China and the Far East. This new society was the first Protestant woman’s missionary society to support independent missionary work outside the United States. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions soon asked them to defer their work--perhaps out of a fear of competing in fund raising. Abeel was saddened that this first effort in the U.S. had to end.
Sarah continued to work on mission projects of an ecumenical nature and in February, 1861, the first women’s society in the U.S. dedicated to sending and supporting women missionaries was established as the Women’s Union Missionary Society for Heathen Lands. Sarah helped organize it and served as its president until her death in 1877.
If that was her only contribution to the life and ministry of the church, it would be fantastic. She did more than that. She also began holding Sunday services in the city prison in New York in the 1830s and she was the first director of the Women’s Prison Association. She was an avid needle worker and much of her embroidery and needlework was sold to benefit missions. She was instrumental in the opening of the Women’s Hospital in 1855; founded the New York House and School of Industry; and helped found the Nursery and Child’s Hospital; she served on the boards of the City Mission and Tract Society and the City Bible Society.
At her memorial service it was stated that she “gave the whole of herself to the Lord; the whole of herself to the church; the whole of herself to every suffering heart she met, and yet the whole of herself to her home and children.”
See Una Ratmeyer, Hands, Hearts, and Voices: Women Who Followed God’s Call; Mrs. W. I. (Mary) Chamberlain, Fifty Years in Foreign Fields; R. Pierce Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America.
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