Forgotten Women Preachers series 5. Muriel Isabelle and Annie G Alexander were women in the City Mission Workers Society,¹ and their younger sister Irene married a pastor of the Ontario Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church. That is remarkable and raises the question, What was going on in the Alexander family and their home congregation? It suggests there was strong encouragement to the young people to be involved in following Jesus in public church work. Did the Elmwood/ Hanover field report anything above the usual in their evangelistic or revival activity? That is something needing investigation.

The two older sisters remain elusive, at least to me. All three girls were noted in the Canada censuses of 1911, 1921 and again in 1931 as young women. Their parents were James Adie Alexander (23 Jan 1874-1940), farmer, and Katherine/Catherine (“Katie” Hastie) (Dec 1882-1969),² both with a Scottish background, but Ontario-born. They were married January 2nd 1901. But they were Mennonites, almost certainly members of the MBiC. The girls were born in Bentinck Township in Grey County, Ontario in June 1903, April 1905 and Sept 1908. A son, Ivan, was born about 1914. He and his father were both “machinists” working in Hanover’s famous furniture factories in 1931, James, then 57, as a sawyer (Canada census 1931). They were obviously no longer working a farm.

The rural township, with European settlers from Scotland, Germany, England and Ireland, at one time had Mennonite Brethren in Christ congregations at Elmwood and Allan Park, started about 1874. In 1948/49 Elmwood merged with the MBiC in the town of Hanover (started 1901) on the Bruce County border with Grey County, which has a vigorous EMCC congregation to this day.³

The two older sisters became members of the City Mission Worker Society in 1928 (Muriel) and 1930 (Annie), and that’s about it. Muriel died in 1981 and is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Listowel. Annie died in 1983 and is buried next to her sister. Their parents are also both interred there.

Muriel was a student of a business college when she was 17-18 (Canada census 1921), and Annie was a student of Ontario Bible College,1930-1931 (Canada census 1931). We have their Conference Journal “service records,” and maybe some Gospel Banner reports. The acceptance of women workers was decreasing in the MBiC during their careers and the CMWS was not opening new missions,⁴ so there were fewer openings anyway. The youngest sister, Gertrude Irene Alexander (1908-1985) married Elder Harvey Sylvester Hallman (1907-1990) of the MBiC some time after 1931.⁵ They had two children Donald and Gloria.⁶ I’m still looking for any obituaries⁷ or marriage certificates. It seems astonishing that so little was reported about the 40-year career for this Hallman couple.⁸ Harvey’s father, Clayton Hallman, 88, was noted in Emphasis as the last charter member of the Hanover Missionary Church when he died in 1971.⁹

Muriel Isabelle had a long career in the MBiC as well. She was dedicated as an Approved Ministering Sister in 1930. From her record of assignments in the Annual Conference Journals, she was enrolled for 25 years but was assigned only 10 of those years.

1928-1930: Listowel, with Jessie E Peard

1930-1931: Labour as the Lord directs

1931-1933: Listowel, with Annie M Srigley

1933-1936: St Catharines, with successively, Edith Raymer, Bessie Plant, and Jessie E Peard

1936-1939: St Thomas, with successively, Ethel Eastman (2 years) and her sister Annie Alexander

1939-1953: Labour as the Lord directs

In 1953, Muriel joined a congregation of the United Church of Canada, and at her request, was dropped from the Conference roll of certified workers. I have not been able to identify her in any photograph in the Missionary Church Historical Trust collection yet.

Here is Annie’s record in the Ontario Conference Journals:

1930-1931: Labour as the Lord directs

1931-32: not mentioned [she was studying at Toronto Bible College]

1932: A Alexander was unconditional [but not placed]

1933-1934: Labour as the Lord directs

1934: “to assist R[osalene] Sargeant [in Wingham, ON] while Miss Peard is having holidays”

1935-1936: Labour as the Lord directs

1936-1937: St Catharines, helper to Jessie E Peard

1937-1938: Labour as the Lord directs

1938-1940: St Thomas, helper to Muriel Alexander and the next year, Violet Herber

1940-1943: St Catharines with Ethel Eastman (2 years), then Violet Herber

1943-1946: Labour as the Lord directs

1947: not mentioned

By 1934, Annie G Alexander had completed the requirements, including reading course exams, to be dedicated as an Approved Ministering Sister. “As the Lord directs” seems to mean that she was available to work unconditionally, but the CMWS President had no placement for her that year, so she was free to “labour as the Lord directs.” In all, she seems to have worked 7 years of her 18 years of credentialed status, which, as with her sister, seems a poor use of willing workers on the part of the CMWS Presidents. Neither sister married, and both are buried in Fairview Cemetery, Listowel, where also their parents.¹⁰ Listowel was a centre for the two for a while: Listowel MBiC/ UMC records show they were members in the 1940s: Annie from May 12 1938 to July 9 1951, when she transferred to Hanover, and Muriel, from September 6 1940 to June 17 1953, as a result of her request and Conference action. It could be they wanted to be in Listowel to help their parents who seem to have retired to that small town.

Irene (Alexander) Hallman at least had this note: “Mrs. Hallman was also president of the District Sunday School Convention for 4 years, and served the church in many capacities.”¹¹ I have not yet found any record of the other sisters’ deaths or obituaries in the denominational Emphasis magazine.

Banner: Annie Alexander (left), and Winnie (Barfoot) Oppertshauser, at Stayner Camp meeting, 1936. Courtesy: MCHT

1Other women who are forgotten preachers/ workers of the EMCC are profiled in EMCC History “Edith Abbott,” “Sarah McQuarrie,” “Mariah Parr,” “Uncredentialed,” and “Mrs Elizabeth Risdon, Mystery Woman: Part 1 and 2.” Still others are available in, for example, the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) has published studies of Janet (Douglas) Hall, Mary-Ann (Hallman) Simmons, and Sarah Ann Pool.

2Katie was 18 in 1901. Nearly all the Alexander families in Grey County during these census years lived in Bentinck Township.

3https://www.hanovermissionary.com/ The Elmwood field owned a cemetery south of Elmwood from about 1889 to 1948. Donated to the United Church that year; Find-a Grave website, “Elmwood, Ontario, Cemetery.” Samuel J Steiner supplied a photograph of the former Elmwood building (built by the United Brethren in Christ) in the GAMEO article about the MBiC Elmwood congregation.

4In the 1930s they were St Thomas (1898), Aylmer (1900), St Catharines (1900), Stratford (1906), Petrolia (1920), Wingham (1920s), and Listowel (1926) were about all that remained to the CMWS by 1940.

5In their pastoral careers, Harvey and Irene served churches at Scott (Durham Region), Grace (Jones Ave) Toronto, Vineland, Stouffville, Kitchener Bethany, Listowel, and Gormley. For two years (1945-1947), he was a co-Pastor-District Superintendent with three others.

6Harvey’s (“Harry”) death, but not much else was mentioned in the newsletter of the Missionary Church, Canada East Communiqué Vol 33 [should be 34] no 2 (February 6 1990) p 6. I don’t see him in Emphasis in 1990.

7Emphasis (Nov/ Dec 1985) p 19.

8Everek Storms noted Harvey’s retirement, Emphasis (May 1 1971). The MCHT has photographs of Harvey and his father Clayton, but perhaps none of Irene.

9Clayton died Nov 15 1971; Emphasis (January 15 1972) p 15.

10James Alexander died 1940, Katherine/ Catherine Alexander in 1969.

11Missionary Church, Canada East District Communiqué: Vol 29 no 7 (September 1985) p 6.