I am writing this blog to record what I know about Mrs Risdon and to honour her. I don’t know exactly where she came from and when or where she died or where she fits in the life of the EMCC. I don’t have a photograph of her. If I were a dedicated and fee-paying genealogist, I could probably come up with more information.¹ Perhaps my limitations will inspire better-skilled investigators.

She wrote letters, testimonies, devotionals and reports to the Gospel Banner (magazine of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church founded in 1878 by Daniel Brenneman) and her articles were accepted from at least 1880 to 1913. Other holiness magazines accepted her writings, especially those of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Sometimes when she wrote for children or youth, she signed herself, “Aunt Lizzie.” At least six editors (Daniel Brenneman, Timothy Brenneman, Joseph Bingeman, Jacob B Detwiler, Henry S Hallman, Charles H Brunner) knew her, but they are all gone now. I don’t think she had an obituary in the magazine.

Elizabeth wrote, “Near my girlhood’s home there was a sand hill on the shore of Lake Michigan…three [hundred feet? microfilm unclear] high, and I had the courage to climb to its highest point…twice….”² Lake Michigan is entirely enclosed by the USA, so wherever she was born, she knew western Michigan. Due to the prevailing winds and the former glaciation, immense dunes accumulate on the east coast of the lake in several places. I was surprised to learn many are well over one hundred meters tall.³ Check out the footnote link. This is all I have been able to discover about her origins, which probably occurred in NW lower Michigan in the earliest days of its settlement by Euro-Americans, perhaps around 1850.

In an obituary for her daughter, Caisey Helen Risdon, from 1897, Mrs Risdon is named as the widow of the late Edwin H Risdon.⁴ Caisey Helen died at 23 years, 10 months and 20 days on the 29^th (January?) in Toronto, which suggests Elizabeth and Edwin married at the latest in 1873.⁵ According to her series of devotional or journal articles in the Gospel Banner which she titled “Leaves from My Diary,” she kept it from at least 1874.⁶

Spiritual steps. I noted Mrs Risdon writing in the 1880s to the Gospel Banner with testimonies telling of her conversion.⁷ As is common in Gospel Banner testimonies, they are rich in reflections on God’s, Jesus’, or the Holy Spirit’s dealings with their soul, but lack details of time, place and involvement of other people. Frustrating for the historian! She finally named the time of her conversion as December 1869 in an article in 1893.⁸ This may have been in a Methodist community, for later she mentioned gaining light about baptism by immersion after talking with Dan Hagey, eleven years after her conversion.⁹ But which Dan Hagey? There were two in Waterloo/ Oxford Counties that could fit. One was a licensed preacher of the MBiC (which preached immersion), probably a son of the Mennonite bishop Joseph Hagey of north Waterloo. There was also a Mennonite Dan Hagey (also spelled Hege) in Ohio about this time.

The experience of holiness was important to Elizabeth Risdon, and she connected it to attending the camp meeting at Breslau “eleven years ago,” probably the first one in 1881.¹⁰

I would infer that by 1881, she was living in Ontario, for she reports her experiences at the first camp meeting of the Evangelical United Mennonite Church (immediate precursor to the MBiC) at Breslau, ON, just east of Berlin (now Kitchener) in September.¹¹ In 1883 she reported that she had been living in Woodstock, ON, since May 1882, but somehow she enjoyed the EUM (Annual?) Conference,¹² and was anticipating the next camp meeting for that fall again in Breslau. She was participating in Methodist circles in Woodstock, because at the time, the EUM (MBiC) did not have a mission there. She mentioned being happy to witness conversions in the Methodist Church, but she was vexed by their worldly social events.¹³

Ministry begins. Eventually, Elizabeth Risdon joined for ten years the upstart newcomers, the Salvation Army (1885 or 1886) “because of their likeness to the Mennonite brethren and sisters, from whom I was separated so far by distance…”¹⁴ It was probably shortly after joining that she “stepped out in ministry” for three years (ie about 1887 to 1890).¹⁵ In the first year (1887) her daughter was converted through the Salvation Army, though she joined a Methodist church soon after.¹⁶ God gave Elizabeth at that time a “watchword” [old word meaning a word or phrase that expresses the core concern of the person or group]: “trust.” She was still active in 1891, for she reported her Thursday evening class was progressing, perhaps a Salvation Army small group, as we would say, or perhaps literally a Methodist-style class. A year later, she reported another year of intense activity but not much about what it was.¹⁷

It is possible Mrs Risdon moved to Toronto for her ministry, for she wrote under the title “Leaves from My Diary” about her experiences in a “girl’s home” in Toronto in 1887.¹⁸ In April 1892 she was writing about her experience with the Brantford, ON, Ontario Institution for the Education of the Blind,¹⁹ and in August 1892, she wrote a report of 14 months of ministry in Brampton, Mimico and in Toronto itself with a home in Toronto. She had a district to visit in Toronto, homes, jails, hospitals, wrote 59 “spiritual letters” of 12 pages or more, and 38 articles for holiness papers.²⁰ In 1894 she signed herself as living at 403 Sackville St, Toronto.²¹

Some devout followers of Jesus do not find their home community of believers easily. Mrs Risdon wrote in 1896 disagreeing with the theology of the British Keswick Conferences, though most MBiC members might later think of them as allies in teaching holiness. Keswick writers’ books are still found in Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada church libraries, while few Wesleyan holiness books are; I don’t know why. The Gospel Banner editor put her article on the editorial page, because he (H S Hallman) agreed with her.²² She is right, their theology is distinct. Presiding Elder Sam Goudie years later admitted it was so, but thought the net result in the lives of the Keswick followers was indistinguishable from Wesleyan holiness followers.²³ She also disliked the idea of duty, preferring, I suppose, the emotions of “blood and fire.”²⁴ The circumstances and experiences of such people push them on, perhaps to find their ideal, or some place to serve. They might say they follow Jesus, not man’s organizations, though in fact human beings cannot do things without some level of (human) structure. We are culture-creatures by creation. Mrs Risdon found herself in the 1890s moving on again several times, yet still she kept in touch with the MBiC.

We’ll continue her life next blog.

Banner: A sand dune on the shore of Lake Michigan.

1Canada census returns do report some Risdons: it lists, eg, an Elizabeth Risdon with two daughters living in East Zorra Township, Oxford County, ON, in 1881. This lady is recorded as married, but no husband called Edwin is living at this location, nor anywhere else in Canada as far as the census goes. This Elizabeth is 39, Presbyterian, American-born, but the younger daughter (Daisy E, 8) was born in Ontario. (In 1871 there had been an Edward Risdon married to a Mary with one daughter in the same area.)

In 1891, an Elizabeth Risdon, lodger, 49, USA-born, parents from Scotland, Methodist, is living alone in St David’s Ward, Toronto, seems to be the same person. I could not find any Elizabeth Risdon anywhere in Canada in 1901, among other Risdons in Canada at the time. In 1911, a Mrs Elizabeth Risdon, 69, widow, Baptist, b 1842, was living in Blenheim Township, Oxford County (next to East Zorra Township), with Scottish ancestry. Probably this same lady, “Lizzie” Risdon, 79, is living in her own residence in Blenheim, ON, in 1921. She became a naturalized Canadian in 1899, according to the 1921 census. Tantalizing, but probably not the Elizabeth Risdon I am searching for.

2Elizabeth Risdon, “Strait Gate,” Gospel Banner (March 15 1892) p 3.

3https://panethos.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/michigans-skyscraper-coastal-sand-dunes/

4Websites list an Edwin Harris Risdon from Hampshire, UK, born in 1836, that could be Elizabeth’s husband, but maybe not. This Edwin died in 1888 in the USA. When Mrs Risdon became a widow is unknown.

5Gospel Banner, (March 1897) p 176. The magazine used several paging styles over the years, sometimes annual, sometimes per issue, and often both. This page number is accumulative from January.

6Gospel Banner, (June 1 1881) p 85. Of course, it might not have been a literal diary, but a literary device to recall incidents from her life.

7Gospel Banner, (November 15 1880) p 173; (December 1 1880), and (December 15 1880) p 189. (February 15 1881) p 30.

8Elizabeth Risdon, “How I received Sanctification,” Gospel Banner (January 16 1893) p 4.

9Elizabeth Risdon, “Baptism,” Gospel Banner (February 27 1913) p 4.

10Elizabeth Risdon, Gospel Banner (January 16 1893) p 4. She probably wrote her letter in the end of 1892, so 11 years before that, ie 1881.

11Gospel Banner (October 15 1881).

12I have not been able to discover the location of this one annual meeting of the Canada Conference yet. Woodstock, ON, of course, is on the south edge of East Zorra Township, south-west of Blenheim, where the “other” Elizabeth Risdon was living 1911 and 1921.

13See EMCC History Blog, “Nonconformity to the World: Part 3, The Mennonite Brethren in Christ Experience.”

14Gospel Banner (October 15 1895) p 4.

15Elizabeth Risdon, “New Year Thoughts,” Gospel Banner (February 1 1891) p 2-3.

16Gospel Banner (March 1897) p 176.

17Gospel Banner (September 1 1892) p 15.

18Gospel Banner (November 26 1895) p 2.

19Gospel Banner (April 1 1892) p 12. https://sites.google.com/view/wrms-150th-anniversary-project/150th-anniversary-may-26-2022

20“Report of Mrs. Risdon,” Gospel Banner (August 1892) p 12-13.

21Gospel Banner (July 17 1894) p 4.

22Elizabeth Risdon, “Keswick Brethren,” Gospel Banner (May 30 1893) p 11.

23Sam Goudie, “The Disciples…After Pentecost,” Gospel Banner (March 28 1912) p 1.

24Elizabeth Risdon, “Duty and Privilege,” Gospel Banner (November 24 1896) p 5. “Duty suggests bondage…Duty is a cold word.” Many soldiers and hymn writers would disagree. Duty is something like faithfulness to such people.