I Dwell Among Mine Own People.

Above:  Kiowa County, Oklahoma, 1951

Image Scanned from Hammond’s Complete World Atlas

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ISABEL ALICE HARTLEY CRAWFORD (MAY 26, 1865-NOVEMBER 18, 1961)

Baptist Missionary to the Kiowa Nation

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–Epitaph of Isabel Alice Hartley Crawford

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Isabel Alice Hartley Crawford comes to this, my Ecumenical Calendar of Saints’ Days and Holy Days, via G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber, A Year With American Saints (2006).

Crawford took the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma.  She, like many missionaries in various places and at a range of times, tended to the tangible and intangible needs of those among whom she ministered, and defended their rights.

Crawford, born in Cheltenham, Ontario, on May 26, 1865, seemed like an unlikely missionary to the Kiowa nation.  Her mother was Sarah Louise Hackett (Crawford).  Our saint’s father was the Reverend John Crawford, a minster and a professor of theology who served in North Dakota and Canada.  She wanted to become a missionary overseas.  After Crawford graduated from the Baptist Missionary Training School, Chicago, Illinois, in 1893, went to work for the Board of Women’s American Baptist Home Mission Society (WABHMS).  The Mission Society sent our saint to Oklahoma, to be a missionary to those she initially regarded as “dirty Indians.”

Crawford ministered among the Kiowa people from 1893 to 1906.   After spending three years at the Elk Creek Mission, she transferred thirty miles away to Saddle Mountain, near Mountain View, Oklahoma.  Our saint had to overcome great challenges.  She, nearly deaf, had to read lips and communicate via sign language and interpreters.  Conditions were primitive.  Furthermore, Crawford had to contend with widespread apathy.  She taught subjects ranging from sewing to baking to the Bible, cared for the ill, and sang hymns.  She also defended the interests of the Kiowa people, besieged by white settlers using the Natives’ natural resources and hunting their game.  Finally, on Easter Sunday 1903, the Saddle Mountain Baptist Church held its first worship service.  She resigned under pressure in 1906, during a controversy related to her practice of permitting lay presidency (by Lucius Aitsan) at the Lord’s Supper.

Crawford continued to work for the Mission Society until she retired in 1929.  That organization never permitted her to return to Oklahoma, but our saint labored faithfully, as her employers allowed.

Crawford, who retired to Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, in 1929, died there, aged 96 years, on November 18, 1961.  The resting place of her physical remains, consistent with her request, was the cemetery of Saddle Mountain Baptist Church.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

APRIL 10, 2019 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, SCIENTIST, AND THEOLOGIAN

THE FEAST OF HENRY VAN DYKE, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND LITURGIST

THE FEAST OF HOWARD THURMAN, PROTESTANT THEOLOGIAN

THE FEAST OF MIKAEL AGRICOLA, FINNISH LUTHERAN LITURGIST, BISHOP OF TURKU, AND “FATHER OF FINNISH LITERARY LANGUAGE”

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God of grace and glory, we praise you for your servant Isabel Alice Hartley Crawford,

who made the good news known to the Kiowa nation.

Raise up, we pray, in every country, heralds of the gospel,

so that the world may know the immeasurable riches of your love,

and be drawn to worship you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Isaiah 62:1-7

Psalm 48

Romans 10:11-17

Luke 24:44-53

–Adapted from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 59

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