Nondescript record book contains Olive Hill Missionary Society minutes from 1900s

A small non-descript “Record” book as recently resurfaced.  This book, purchased for $1.00, contains the “Minutes of Missionary Society.” This Missionary Society was the women’s group of the Olive Hill Church. The first entry is simply dated, “Nov – 1919.” 

In 1919, the Olive Hill Church was already 53 years old. The church building was located in the northeast corner of what was and still is, the Olive Hill Cemetery. Ten years later a new church building would be built a half mile north. Today the 146-year-old congregation still worships in that building on the southeast corner of the intersection of 190 Road and Birch Road in Montana Township, Jewell County, Kansas.

But in 1919, the women of the congregation were ready to organize their own group, a “Missionary Society.”  The first sentence in the record book states “Society was Organized at the home of Mrs. Myrtle Roe.” The exact date in November is not recorded.

Officers elected were: Mrs. Eva Green, president; Mrs. Ida Slates, vice president;  Mrs. Rose Donahoo, secretary;  Mrs. Ila Craven, treasurer-corresponding secretary;  Mrs. Rhoda Roe and Mrs. Emma Warren, committee to frame the constitution.

A membership list for 1920, the organization’s first year, contains 27 names. Surnames included: Roe, Donahoo, Slates, Shaw, Ackley, Green, Craven, Turner, Warren, Bendusky, Kamm, Shaffer, Maxwell, Blackstone, Burnell, Headrick, Douthett, Gilchrist and Colicott.

These women met monthly, in each other’s homes or the church, for devotions, singing and prayer. Solos were sung, dramas presented, readings given, poems recited and scriptures read. Lessons were given on such topics as China, Puerto Rico, Latin America and Africa. During the 20s and 30s the Olive Hill Cradle Roll was maintained by the group.

Dues were 10 cents a meeting – all duly recorded in the Record Book when paid. Those dimes became more precious as the hard times of the 1930s rolled on. But the dimes, though sometimes nickels, were devotedly given.

What transpired throughout the next years is not entirely known, what is known is the group, now 103 years old, still actively exists. Now it is called the Olive Hill Ladies Missionary Group.  It meets, generally monthly, in the Olive Hill Church for devotions, prayers, lessons and service projects. 

Currently, Carol Waters is the chairwoman of the group. The service projects vary, collecting disposable diapers is a current one. This past month the group collected 30 boxes to donate to Operation Christmas Child. 

This writer was delighted to review this small piece of history. My grandmothers, Della Peck Roe and Ethel Warren Headrick are both named in the records. All four of my great-grandmothers, Jennie Elliott Peck, Rhoda Gates Roe, Sarah Tibbetts Headrick and Emma Bacon Warren plus other relatives were also part of the Missionary Society that saw its beginnings in 1919.

Trivia: The two women who were to develop a constitution for the group in 1919, were good friends as well as this writer’s great-grandmothers.  Though friends, they probably would never have guessed that 30 years later in 1949, the Olive Hill Church would witness the marriage of my parents - Ilene Roe (the granddaughter of Rhoda Roe) and Rex Headrick (the grandson of Emma Warren).