Sacramento County

Biographies

REV. MARY M. BOWEN

Preeminent in missionary work in California, and internationally known, is the Rev. Mary M. Bowen, who was founder, and prior to her retirement in 1930, superintendent of the Independent Japanese Mission. For thirty-one years she was one of Sacramento’s leading welfare workers. She has performed notable work in the field of her choice, and among the Japanese of California, for whose interests she labored, she is an idolized figure. She has the distinction of being the first woman regularly ordained as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Rev. Mary M. Bowen was born near Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1849, a daughter of Lot Garrison and Cassandra Vance-Wright Bowen. Her father was eminent in both civil and military affairs.

“When seven years of age she received an injury that rendered her a semi-invalid, and from which she has never fully recovered. She was forbidden by her physician to take the course of study pursued by her elder sister, but with unconquerable persistence she planned ways peculiar to herself. Reclining upon a couch, with closed eyes, and listening to the instruction given her sister by governess and tutor, she acquired much and thus, as she delighted to exclaim, ‘purloined her college education.’ At the age of thirteen, she was entered in Morgantown Methodist Woman’s College, where she was declared a ‘literary genius.’

“She grew toward womanhood in a villa, ‘Locust Hill,’ near Clarksburg, West Virginia, during the period when the booming of Civil war guns crept over the hills, and smoke of battle often dimmed the skies. She knew much of the cruelties of war. Handling of firearms was no novelty, but her father, a brilliant young cavalry officer, was a champion for peace, and in times of reconstruction the villa ‘big gate’ stood wide open for weary veterans of both blue and gray, as they trailed in, ragged of uniform, hollow-cheeked from suffering, to lounge upon clover-decked lawn and devour gingerbread and apple pie, lavishly dispensed by hands of sympathizing ladies of the household. O, it was a goodly sight!

“About this time the little girl gave further proof of literary talent. Her first effort found space in the town weekly, and soon her poems and sketches appeared in various Christian publications. As time progressed she became well known in several of the leading magazines of that now remote period. Financial remuneration was liberal. She had ‘attained!’ But Divine Providence had for her another, and unguessed way. Her ambition was to occupy a chair in college faculty and combine with this the fruits of her pen. Again she achieved. Her first work was in Western Reserve Seminary of Ohio. Called back for a time to home ministries, to which she was devoted, her next adventure was to the important office of assistant lady principal of Beaver Woman’s College, a Methodist institution south of Pittsburgh. Here she was content to live; but again the voice of Divine Providence spoke. The call was clear. With tears of mingled joy and pain she resigned, bade a final farewell to adoring friends and went forth to her life work. A frail body, ‘nine parts spirit and one of flesh,’ was her heritage. She used it well, often lying upon her couch and laughing and singing away the fears of her watchers. When she appeared before the Methodist Woman’s Home Missionary Society for her first orders she took along her faithful colored maid, a presumed necessity. ‘O, you cannot keep a maid, exclaimed the august board of the church. No one ever asked this before. You must learn to care for yourself.’

“Despite the surroundings of wealth and leisure, this girl was not immune from severe penalties. The trials of her life had been like a web of romance. She had always won, and knew not to fail. Indeed at this late period of her career, in conversation with a friend, she exclaimed: ‘Discouragement! In all my life I have never felt a moment of discouragement. When one way has failed I have just looked for another. He that seeketh shall find!’ So she adapted herself to conditions and won.

“Having filled various positions of heavy responsibility, east and south, in May 1892, she came to California for a period of rest and recreation. After three weeks she had found in this cosmopolitan civilization a race problem which appealed. She took ‘that which lay nearest her hand,’ leaving the attractive highway, entering the dismal and sodden byway, where want, hatred and suffering crouched like wolves of the forest, lifting unafraid her white hands to extend relief. The church rebelled. Even the holy church, seemingly blinded to human need, pleaded, persuaded, cajoled, and in some instances condemned. For three years Bishop Thoburn waited for her to join him in India. But by this time she had builded missions for the despised Japanese in both Los Angeles and Riverside – untrodden ground – missions today developed into almost the finest churches of their class on the coast. Yielding to their continuous call, she accepted the position of evangelist for the coast and Hawaii, where she worked successfully for a season. But another vision was hers. She must be free to do, however imperfectly, whatever was at hand. The needs of her own people were everywhere. She was an American loyalist of unshakeable faith. She must work for all alike.

“The church sent her to Sacramento for a survey of conditions. To her the scene was one of devastation. In 1888 the old had not given place to the new. More things than furniture of ancient period had ‘come around the Horn.’ There were apathy, luxury, blind-eyedness to be met – and, if so be, cured. She found white laborers working ‘from sunrise to sundown for as little as seventy-five cents per day.’ No provision was made, except in rare instances, for comfort for housemaids. Houses were not built that way. Girls could sleep in basements on dilapidated couches, without linen, their nocturnal companions the furry pets of the household. Several things and more were to be done. She initiated the Associated Charities; a home for men of her own race; and with the hearty cooperation of the long deceased Mr. Dwyer, chief of police, was laid the foundation of a home for fallen women. This accomplished, she commenced the now historic ‘Independent Japanese Mission and Bible School’ of Fifth street. Apathy had given way to interest; good Sacramento had awakened. Her ‘working students’ were in demand. In return she required humane comforts where they served. All this reverted to the help of the neglected white woman toiler, as she determined it should do! Presently the ‘walking delegate’ observed paint-brushes busy with rejuvenating the dilapidated little mission. A demand was made: ‘If you dare allow the Orientals to proceed with what you have taught them, we will kick the ladders from under them.’ The situation looked doubtful, in fact, gloomy. The lady responded: ‘Very well, I will mount the ladder and do the painting myself!’ She proceeded to the task, humming revival hymns. It was a success.

“She had burned her bridge and was out of sight. No time save to work; no account of hours to sleep. As for refreshment, she needed it not, only as she found it in rescuing slave women who crept to her door; finding the mother-hungry, home-hungry boys dying in camp, bearing them to hospital, winning them back to life, or laying away their pallid clay – nearly two hundred of them – under the sand waste of the old ‘Helvetia,’ now one of the beauty spots of our city, changed from desert waste to a green blanket of quietness where birds sing and little children play. Her work took her anywhere up and down the coast; quick trips to the bay, out in the hills, to neighboring camps where dangers hovered and hatred that threatened bloodshed. Her little Bible was her only weapon of defense. Carried in her hand, it never accomplished its mission. She met enemies but she left them friends. God was with her.

“Rev. Bowen resigned flattering offers that promised finest support and took voluntary poverty, choosing to share the deprivations of those for whom she worked rather than a life of ease. At typewriter and printing press, deep in the midnight hour, she wrought out means for a simple support, and never went a bill from the door unpaid.

“Thousands have passed through the portals of the little mission. Nearly three hundred have received the rite of baptism. Many of the students have gone forth to successful life. A few have become eminent.

“In her early literary life Rev. Bowen enjoyed the friendship and commendation of John G. Whittier; and J.G. Holland, that prince of critics, urged her at the age of twenty-three to venture into publishing a volume of verse. Her nom-de-plume was well known, but characteristic diffidence withheld her name, choosing to await full-fledged success.

“Rev. Bowen enjoys the distinction of being a direct descendant of Sir John Philpot, who on December 18, 1555, was burned at the stake for his Christian faith. George Clymer, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was also an ancestor. In maidenly meditation upon these, to her then ponderous matters, she one day timidly ventured to approach her august father for a consultation as to what should be done about all this! Turning his eagle, blue-gray eyes upon her for a silent instant, in measured tone he spoke: ‘My child, what you are is of vastly more importance than what your grandmothers were. What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The rebuke was all-sufficient. Henceforward ambition lay in the intrepid woman through a life of unusual value to humanity. Rev. Bowen revels in outdoor life and was an adventurous horsewoman. She uses her brush with fine ability. Her genial, approachable disposition, her keen sense of humor, added to quick and tender sympathies, win her a delightful place in many heavenly-fashioned hearts.”

Supplementing the story quoted above, we may add that Rev. Bowen was early inspired to literacy endeavor by the fact that her maternal grandfather, John Foster Wright, of Philadelphia, had been a writer and poet. As a soldier in the army, her father picked up a copy of the Christian Advocate, in which he read a poem of four stanzas which he immediately recognized as having been written by his daughter. Her work appeared in Godey’s, Peterson’s Demorest, Scribners and other publications. She contributed poetry and sketches to all the leading magazines of the day.

In June 1930, Rev. Bowen felt that it was time to retire from the strenuous work of the mission, to spend her time in writing an publishing her own books. With her departure from its management, her mission was closed. At the Methodist conference in Santa Cruz in September 1924, Rev. Bowen was honored by being ordained a minister of the Methodist Church, the first woman to have ever received this ordination. She was also the first person to receive a life membership in the Sacramento County Humane Society, which honor was granted for her long service in humanitarian affairs. Her labors have extended over broad fields of activity, even aside from the missionary work which was her chief occupation, and she holds a place of great affection and high esteem in the city of her chosen residence.

Rev. Bowen has enjoyed the benefits of extensive travel, having twice crossed the ocean, and having spent a year in Japan, but best she loves Sacramento, and here in her simple bungalow, “RESTHAVEN,” where little children love to come to her exquisite, wee chapel and sing for their Sabbath morning devotions, she is reaping the evening-time delights of a “life hid with Christ in God.”

Transcribed by Debbie Gramlick.

Source: Wooldridge, J.W. Major History of the Sacramento Valley California, Vol. 2 Pgs. 308-309. The Pioneer Historical Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.

Sacramento County Biographies