Sisters in Mission
Frances Davidson and Mary Davidson Yoder

Fall was in the air that October day of 1897. Mary Davidson Yoder hurried across Wooster, Ohio’s busy downtown square to the County Courthouse. Her younger sister Frances Davidson walked quickly beside her. Their mission was to acquire a passport for Frances, who planned to leave the United States for South Africa in just a few weeks. The noise and bustle of the city, with the clatter of carriages and drays, the sounds of horses whinnying and their drivers “giddy-ups,” traces of straw and manure steaming in their wake, with the occasional horse-less carriage weaving its way among the slower-paced vehicles, was an integral part of the fabric of Mary’s life.¹

As proprietor of the well-established Hotel Yoder, standing proudly on the opposite corner of the square, with its reputation as “the Oldest Reliable Hotel in the city,” Mary would have been a familiar figure in downtown Wooster.² An upstanding member of the Methodist Episcopal church, just around the corner, she would have dressed in the tailored clothing fitting the image of a professional woman of the era, at the same time remaining within her denomination’s standards of modesty.³ Frances had just arrived from the sleepy town of McPherson, Kansas. She cut a quite different image from that of her sister, and could easily have been mistaken for a Quaker, or even a Mormon.⁴ Frances belonged to another sectarian group, the Brethren in Christ; sometimes they were still known as River Brethren, as they had been christened by curious onlookers, intrigued by their practice of triune immersion in the local river or stream.⁵ Frances took seriously the teachings on “modest apparel,” and Brethren in Christ self-understandings as a “peculiar people” that disdained jewelry or other ornamentation.⁶ She upheld the community’s interpretation of New Testament writings, with the emphasis on the “duty” that women held to cover their heads at all times, as a reminder to be continually in prayer.⁷

Read the rest here:

1. “Know Ohio: Our History in the Automotive Industry,” Ideastream Public Media, accessed May 4, 2023, https://www.ideastream.org/programs/newsdepth/know-ohio-our-history-in-the-automotive-industry. [↩]
2. Caldwell’s Atlas (1897), Wooster, Ohio, accessed May 27, 2020,  https://wiki.wcpl.info/w/index.php?title=Caldwell%27s_Atlas_(1897)/Wooster,_Ohio. See also “Our Dead, Christian B. Yoder,” Evangelical Visitor, March 1, 1893, 80 (hereafter cited as EV); reprinted from The Wayne County (Wooster, Ohio) Herald, February 9, 1893. [↩]
3. “Timeline of Women in Methodism,” accessed May 10, 2023, https://www.umc.org/en/content/timeline-of-women-in-methodism;“Outward Modesty,” Wikipedia, accessed May 10, 1923, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outward_holiness; “Silouettes, Historic Dresses and Costumes,” accessed May 10, 2023, https://silhouettescostumes.com/the-eras-we-build/1888-1898/. [↩]
4. H. Frances Davidson, personal diary 2,  November 30, 1897, Brethren in Christ Historical Library and Archives, Messiah University, Mechanicsburg, PA. Hereafter Davidson’s diaries are cited as HFD Diaries. [↩]
5. A. W. Climenhaga, History of the Brethren in Christ Church (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 1952), 55-56, 69 [↩]
6. “What is Meant by Modest Apparel?” EV,  August 1, 1887, 14; C. G. Finney, “Dress Influence,” EV, August 1, 1887, 16; “Brethren in Christ, U.S. History,” accessed May 10, 2023,  https://bicus.org/about/history/. [↩]
7. M .L., “A Duty for Sisters,” EV, November 1, 1887, 46. [↩]