Life of Isabel Crawford

This biography of Isabel Crawford is a lively account of a feisty and fascinating Baptist missionary. Born in Canada in 1865, she had an independent spirit leading her to remarkable accomplishments in a life marked by obstacles. Her conversion at age ten created a lifelong commitment to Christian service. In her teens a near-fatal illness left her deaf, but nevertheless in 1893 she completed studies to become a missionary. Rejected for overseas service, she was assigned to a troubled Indian mission in Oklahoma. She began her work there with great reluctance but developed a lifelong bond with her beloved Kiowa converts. Her success as a woman missionary created friction with the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and she left the mission in 1906. Remaining committed to the Women's Home Mission Society, Crawford became a sought-after inspirational speaker for them and later served again as missionary, this time in western New York. She retired in 1930 and moved back to Canada in 1942. Crawford is buried, as she had arranged, at her Saddle Mountain, Oklahoma, mission. The biography is enriched by extensive use of Crawford's witty and perceptive descriptions of the extraordinary challenges and variety of experiences that marked her life. ""In this fast-paced account of the career of Isabel Crawford, Whiteley brings to life a largely forgotten but remarkably compelling Canadian-American Baptist missionary to the Kiowa Indians in the Oklahoma Territory at the turn of the twentieth century. Crawford emerges as a courageous . . . woman whose determination to proclaim the gospel marched with determination to fight for the preservation of Kiowa culture. Her story is at once inspiring, sobering, and altogether beautiful."" --Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Christian History, Duke Divinity School ""Marilyn Whiteley has constructed a fascinating historical account of the life of Isabel Crawford, missionary to the Kiowa Indians. Independent, deaf, and unmarried, Crawford broke one stereotype after another--and kept diaries to document her unusual career. Dr. Whiteley's account is meticulous and readable, the work of a master historian. This book is a fine addition to a growing bibliography on the important subject of women in mission."" --Dana L. Robert, Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission, Boston University ""In this fascinating and informative biography . . . Whiteley's adroit use of a wide variety of archival sources provides an important social and religious history of domestic missionary work among native Americans. This amply illustrated biography also provides fascinating glimpses of how one 'strong, even feisty' woman both conformed to and confronted social and religious norms as she sought to carry out what she perceived to be her cross-cultural mission to do God's work."" --Gordon Heath, Professor of Christian History, McMaster University ""Between 1896 and 1906 Isabel Crawford worked as a solitary missionary to the Kiowa Native Americans of Oklahoma. Conservative in theology but independent in spirit, she insisted on the right of the church she had gathered to observe the Lord's Supper in the absence of an ordained minister. Although she loved the Kiowa people . . . the controversy made her resign her position. Marilyn Whiteley has written a sensitive and revealing biography of a formidable woman."" --David Bebbington, Professor of History, University of Stirling Marilyn Fardig Whiteley is an independent scholar living in Guelph, Canada. She holds graduate degrees in church history, but her interest in women's history has led her to write on many aspects of women in the Christian church in North America. Her books include Canadian Methodist Women, 1766-1925: Marys, Marthas, Mothers in Israel and The