Category: Free Methodist Women

Clara Wetherald, Free Methodist Women3 Comments

Clara Wetherald Part Three: Wife, Mother, Pastor

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Clara Wetherald was born Clarissa L. Miller around 1849. While Clarissa Miller was a very popular name during this time period, Her husband John Wetherald was born in New York in 1842 to William Wetherald and Hannah Ferris. John’s father was born in England and immigrated to the U.S. It appears at some point in his family’s history they changed the spelling of their name from “Wetherell” or “Witherall” to “Wetherald.” Sometime between John’s birth in 1842 and 1860 his family moved to Vienna, Genesee County, Michigan.  On Apr. 5 1866, John F. and Clara Miller married in Genesee County, … Continue reading Clara Wetherald Part Three: Wife, Mother, Pastor

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Finding Clara Wetherald Part Two

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In 1888 Clara Wetherald, a licensed evangelist and circuit riding preacher in Michigan, wrote a ministerial update published in the October 10, 1888, The Free Methodist. Wetherald had been sent to dedicate a new church in Royalton, Michigan, only to find on arrival that the congregation still needed to raise $369, and the building for the church was not completed. “It was a great cross to me to go to dedicate a church, as I consider myself a poor hand to raise money,” (5) Wetherald wrote. Yet, she led the congregation into a time of prayer on Saturday September 29, … Continue reading Finding Clara Wetherald Part Two

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Finding Clara Wetherald Part One

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19th century Free Methodist women lay leaders and pastors have become more than a rhetorical history project for me. They have become my friends. I want to sit down with Eliza Suggs and Emma Ray and over a cup of tea discuss temperance issues and entire sanctification. I want to talk to Ellen Roberts and Emma Sellew Roberts about what it was like to edit religious periodicals in the 19th century, and I want to talk to Clara Wetherald about what it was like to be a wife, mother, and circuit riding preacher in the mid 1800s. Out of all … Continue reading Finding Clara Wetherald Part One