Esther Pritchard
{{Short description|American minister and editor}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Esther Pritchard
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| image = ESTHER TUTTLE PRITCHARD A woman of the century (page 599 crop).jpg
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| caption = "A Woman of the Century"
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| birth_name = Esther B. Wood
| birth_date = January 26, 1840
| birth_place = Morrow County, Ohio, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1900|8|6|1840|1|26}}
| death_place = Kokomo, Indiana, U.S.
| resting_place = Sugar Grove Cemetery, Wilmington, Ohio, U.S.
| occupation = {{hlist|minister|editor}}
| language = English
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| nationality = American
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| alma_mater = Delaware College
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| notableworks = A Responsive Reading on Proportionate and Systemic Giving. With catalogue of books on this subject.
| spouse = {{hlist|{{marriage|Lucius Vincent Tuttle|1866|1881|end=died}}|{{marriage|Calvin W. Pritchard|1885|1896|end=died}} }}
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| children = 1
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Esther Pritchard ({{nee}}, Wood; after first marriage, Tuttle; after second marriage, Pritchard; January 26, 1840 – August 6, 1900) was a 19th-century American minister and editor.{{sfn|Herman|Tal|1984|p=62}} Pritchard was the daughter of a minister of the Society of Friends. She was one of the leading preachers of the Friends' Society in the United States, and was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Superintendent of the Department of Systematic Giving.{{sfn|World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Convention|1893|p=55}} Pritchard edited for some years the Friend's Missionary Advocate, and was a teacher in the Chicago Training School for Missions. Her husband's removal from Chicago to the pastorate of the Friends church, Kokomo, Indiana, severed her connection with the school and left her free to push the special work of her department. Seventeen State Unions subsequently adopted the department, while outside the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, ten Woman's Missionary Boards were influenced to create a similar agency.{{sfn|Chapin|1895|p=19}} She died in 1900.
Early life and education
Esther B. Wood was born in Morrow County, Ohio, January 26, 1840. She came from Quaker ancestry, and her ministerial ability was inherited from both parents. Her parents were Daniel Wood and his wife, Elizabeth Lancaster (Benedict) Wood.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} Daniel was a preacher, and there were a number in her mother's family. A happy girl, strong-willed and ambitious, it was not until a time of sorrow that she yielded to her vocation.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}}
She spent her childhood in Morrow County, and received her early education there.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}}
Career
In her young adulthood, while a student at Delaware College, she met Prof. Lucius Vincent Tuttle (1838-1881), a volunteer in the Civil War, who devoted the remainder of his life to the profession of teaching.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}} They married August 11, 1866, at Morrow, Ohio. The couple had one daughter, Mary Elizabeth Tuttle (1867-1869),{{cite web |title=FamilySearch: Sign In |url=https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LWG7-KNS |website=ident.familysearch.org |access-date=6 February 2022}} who died at the age of 22 months.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} The death of the child had a profound effect on the mother who became a duly recorded a Minister of the Gospel, and spent considerable time in evangelistic work, mainly in Ohio and on the Atlantic Coast.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} Prof. Tuttle died in 1881.{{sfn|Pierson|1891|p=471}}
In 1884, Pritchard was chosen by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of Friends in America to edit the Friend's Missionary Advocate, the organization's official organ,{{sfn|Pierson|1891|p=471}} and took up her headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}} Shortly after her removal to that city, on February 19, 1885, she married Calvin W. Pritchard (1834–1896), editor of the Christian Worker. She assisted her husband in his duties as editor of the Christian Worker, and in his pastoral work in Kokomo, Indiana, where she spent the last 13 years of her life.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} For six years, Pritchard served as the editor and manager of the Friends Missionary Advocate. It was largely through her influence that the Friends Mission was established in Nanjing, China. {{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} In 1886, she became the proprietor of the Friend's Missionary Advocate, which she edited and published until the autumn of 1890, when it passed by gift from her to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of Friends.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}}
Her work, A Responsive Reading on Proportionate and Systemic Giving. With catalogue of books on this subject. was published by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of Friends in America, in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.{{sfn|Woman's Foreign Missionary Society|1894|p=105}} She was a contemporary of Frances Willard,{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} and Esther Pugh.{{sfn|World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Convention|1893|p=55}}
For several years, Pritchard was a national officer of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}}
During the period of 1891–93, she was actively engaged as Bible teacher in the Chicago training school for city, home and foreign missions, besides acting as superintendent of the systematic-giving department of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}} She was a good Bible scholar, and an effective Bible teacher. Her serious concern was that the Church might be preserved from the influences of destructive "Biblical criticism".{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} Frail health imposed limitations upon taking on additional work.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}}
Personal life
She made her home in Western Springs, Illinois.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=589}}
Her last sickness, being of short duration, and she unconscious a part of the time, it seemed Pritchard did not realize her approaching death.
{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} She died on the morning of August 6, 1900,{{sfn|Society of Friends|1900|p=106}} at Kokomo, Indiana, and was buried at Sugar Grove Cemetery, Wilmington, Ohio.{{cite web |title=FamilySearch: Sign In |url=https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LHKW-ZVX |website=www.familysearch.org |access-date=6 February 2022}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
=Attribution=
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Chapin|first=Clara Christiana Morgan|title=Thumb Nail Sketches of White Ribbon Women|url=https://archive.org/details/thumbnailsketch00chapgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/thumbnailsketch00chapgoog/page/n57 19]|edition=Public domain|year=1895|publisher=Woman's temperance publishing association}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last1=Herman|first1=Kali|last2=Tal|first2=Kalí|title=Women in Particular: An Index to American Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WiYqAAAAYAAJ|year=1984|publisher=Oryx Press|isbn=9780897740883}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Pierson|first=Arthur T.|title=Missionary Review of the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVyelAMv7B0C&pg=PA471|edition=Public domain|volume=14|year=1891|publisher=Funk & Wagnalls|location=Philadelphia}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|author=Society of Friends|title=Minutes of Western Yearly Meeting of Friends|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cdQYAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA4-PA106|edition=Public domain|year=1900|chapter=Memorial of Esther Tuttle Pritchard|publisher=Western Yearly Meeting}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last1=Willard|first1=Frances Elizabeth|last2=Livermore|first2=Mary Ashton Rice|title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_zXEEAAAAYAAJ|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_zXEEAAAAYAAJ/page/n593 589]|edition=Public domain|year=1893|publisher=Moulton}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|author=Woman's Foreign Missionary Society|title=The Heathen Woman's Friend|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1I1EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT105|edition=Public domain|volume=26|year=1894|publisher=Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|author=World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Convention|title=Minutes of the ... Biennial Convention and Executive Committee Meetings of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7xx47uURVTUC&pg=RA1-PA55|edition=Public domain|volume=2-3|year=1893|publisher=Woman's Temperance Publishing Association}} }}
External links
- {{wikisource-inline|Woman of the Century/Esther Tuttle Pritchard}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Esther Pritchard}}
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:19th-century American writers
Category:19th-century American women writers
Category:19th-century American newspaper editors
Category:People from Morrow County, Ohio
Category:American religious writers
Category:American women religious writers
Category:Woman's Christian Temperance Union people
Category:University of Delaware alumni
Category:American women non-fiction writers
Category:American women newspaper editors
Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century