Susan Norris Fitkin

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Susan Norris Fitkin (March 31, 1870 - October 18, 1951) was a Canadian ordained minister, who served successively in the Society of Friends, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, and finally in the Church of the Nazarene. Fitkin was the founder and first president of the Church of the Nazarene's Women's Foreign Missionary Society (now Nazarene Missions International) from September 1915 until her retirement in June 1948. Fitkin served twenty-four years on the General Board of the Church of the Nazarene. In 1924 Fitkin and her husband Abram Fitkin funded and founded the Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Manzini, Swaziland, and also funded and founded Nazarene Bible Training Schools in China, and Beirut, Lebanon,

Video Susan Norris Fitkin

Early life and family

Susanah W. "Susie" Norris was born March 31, 1870 on a farm in Ely, Quebec, Canada), the fourth oldest of the nine children of John Norris (born June 25, 1835 in Russelltown, Châteauguay, Quebec, Canada East; died December 20, 1887 in East Farnham, Quebec, Canada), a farmer and the foreman of a lumber camp, and his wife, Susannah Townsend Hall (born March 16, 1834 in East Farnham, Quebec, Canada East; died March 28, 1918 in Cliftondale, Massachusetts). John Norris and Susannah Hall were married on April 10, 1855 in Farnham East. Her siblings were George Miron Norris (born July 1, 1859 in East Farnham, Quebec), Hannah Norris (born August 8, 1861 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec; died August 23, 1897 in Shefford, Quebec), Annie Louise Norris (born May 2, 1865 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec), Jane "Janie" May Norris (born March 4, 1872 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec), John Milton "Johnny" Norris (born November 15, 1873 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec), Emma Norris (born April 11, 1875 in Quebec, Canada), Charles Newel Norris (born January 29, 1877 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec), Alice "Nellie" Norris (born June 15, 1880 in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec).

By the time of the first Canadian census in April 1871, the Norris family had been living on a farm in Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton, Quebec for about eleven years, with John described as a Methodist farmer, while Susannah and their four children (including one-year-old "Suza") were described as Episcopalians. Later Norris' parents were members of the Society of Friends, who were active in the temperance reform movement. Her mother served once as a delegate to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention in Ottawa.

At the time of the second Canadian census in April 1881, John and Suzanne Norris and their nine children (including 11-year-old "Suza") were still living on a farm in Ely South, in Shefford, Quebec, and were described as Episcopalians. However, later in 1881, the Norris family moved back to East Farnham, Quebec, where Susanna's parents George C. Hall and Hannah Hall held longstanding membership in a Quaker meeting house. The Norris family attended Quaker worship but also attended the local Church of England. On February 23, 1886, five of John and Susanna's younger children were baptized by Revd John Merrick in the Church of England at Adamsville in East Farnham. On June 19, 1887 Anna Louise was baptized by Charles P. Abbott in the Church of England in Ely. On December 20, 1887, Norris' father John died in East Farnham, and was buried in quaker cemetery, Friends Cemetery East Farnham Monteregie Region, Quebec, Canada

Conversion

At the age of seventeen Norris was diagnosed with cancer, and given a prognosis of no more than two years to live. After being bedridden for the next two years, in March 1890 Norris was converted to a saving knowledge of Christ. In her autobiography Susan Norris Fitkin wrote:

Just as everything in my life, from the human standpoint, looked blackest, a new interest was suddenly awakened. A traveling Quaker preacher held some cottage meetings in our town. I attended and began to realize that even though I was a consistent church member, I was not a Bible Christian. ... I went to the altar seeking God, but was ignorant of the way of faith and did not get through to victory, but continued to pray and search the Scriptures for light and blessing. I began now with new interest to attend the Quaker meetings in the old Meeting House, which was up on a hill almost directly across the highway from my home. My grandparents had been consistent members here all their lives. Many aged saints still gathered there and gave wonderful testimonies about knowing their sins were all forgiven and their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The Grace of conviction deepened in my heart. I found only warnings as I read my Bible. I became very miserable and knew I was a lost soul and on my way to hell. Finally I found some comfort in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and began to realize a little of God's gracious provision for lost souls in the tragedy of the cross, portrayed by the prophet, and the goodness of God led me to repentance. I was not only sorry for the past, but gladly forsook all worldliness and sin, and continued earnestly to seek God. I had not yet learned the way of faith, but one day, when turning the pages of my Bible and praying for a message, these words seemed to stand out in raised letters: "I have blotted out thy sins as a thick cloud, and will remember them no more forever." I wondered if it could really mean me, or how I could make it mine, when suddenly another verse in the New Testament seemed to be emphasized in the same manner. As I read "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life," I said: "Oh, if I just believe, I shall have it," and as my faith looked up to God and I trusted His word, the burden rolled away and heavenly light flooded my soul. I was a new creature; everything seemed new, -- the sun, the trees, the green fields, the birds, all seemed new. Old things had passed away. My heart was filled with joy and gladness. God in His great love and mercy had given me a sky-blue conversion, which the devil was never able to make me doubt. What a marvelous Grace that brings us into the family of God, and gives us victory over the world, the flesh and the devil!"

To the displeasure of some friends and family members, after her conversion Susan Norris began attending the Union Chapel, an interdenominational church in East Farnham that was strongly evangelical in emphasis, instead of the local Church of England.!" According to Nazarene historian Stan Ingersol "Each different strain of piety nourished her spiritual development. Several encounters with life-threatening illnesses, including typhoid fever, heightened her seriousness toward religion. At times, she experienced unusual dreams and saw visions."

Late in the summer of 1890 Norris was stricken with typhoid. In her autobiography, Fitkin described a dream she had at this time: "At the end of this valley was a gate with a beautiful heavenly light streaming through, and lighting up the entire scene. Oh, I was so happy! I said, 'It is not dark at all; death is only a shadow.' Then the Lord whispered to me, and asked if I wanted to go in. I replied, 'Whatever is Thy will; I would not turn my hand over to decide.'" When dawn broke, Norris awakened, as one who had been refreshed by hidden springs of life. She said to the family, "I am going to get well." Gradually Norris recovered her health during the next few months.

In December 1890 Norris had a vision of Christ's Second Coming where she was intensely happy until she realized that many people would not be going to heaven. In her autiobiography Norris described her vision of Christ: "I ran to the door to meet Him when I was startled with loud wailing cries, and looking back, I saw most of the people on their faces, crying out in fear and anguish." Norris claimed that after she woke that she became conscious of the presence of Jesus: "It was like a person standing by my bed and in an audible voice saying solemnly: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.'" Consequently, Norris believed God was calling her to be a missionary preacher. However, when she offered herself as a missionary to the Toronto headquarters of the China Inland Mission in 1891, Norris was refused for health reasons. Norris later indicated she came across Ezekiel 3:5 and the words jumped out at her: "For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language." Norris accepted this an indication that God did not want her to go to a foreign land as a missionary.

Consecration

In April 1891 Susan Norris was employed as a dressmaker and living on her widowed mother's farm in Farnham East with her an older sister Anna, and six younger siblings. In 1891 visiting English evangelists, who were staying in her family home, led Norris into a deeper relationship with God. On the flyleaf of her Bible she wrote her consecration creed, which "helped and steadied me many times through the coming years." This was as follows: "My Consecration -- I am willing-- To take what Thou givest; To lack what Thou withholdest; To relinquish what Thou takest; To go where Thou commandest; To be what Thou requirest; I am, O Lord, wholly and forever Thine." Soon after Norris began conducting services for youth in her community and then, at her mother's urging, in other communities. Out of this, her ministry as an evangelist began emerging around 1892.

In Summer 1892 Norris was elected by her local Christian Endeavor Society to be a delegate to the first world convention of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where she met J. Walter Malone (born August 11, 1857 near Marathon, Ohio; died December 30, 1935 in Cleveland Ohio), leader in the fast-growing holiness wing of the Society of Friends, who, with his wife Emma Brown Malone (born January 30, 1859 in Pickering, Ontario; died May 10, 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio), had founded the Christian Workers' Training School for Bible Study and Practical Methods of Work in Cleveland, Ohio in 1892.

Despite her precarious health and opposition from some of her siblings, in the fall of 1892 Norris enrolled a few weeks late in the first academic class at Malone's school, also known as Friends' Bible Institute and Training School (and now as Malone University). Among her classmates was Mary Emily Soule (born August 12, 1869 in Dunham, Quebec, Canada; died June 26, 1943 in Vicksburg, Michigan), a fellow Canadian Quaker, who with her husband Edgar Ellyson, also became prominent leaders in the Church of the Nazarene. Shortly after joining Cleveland's Friends, Norris became "seriously ill with cancer. She was anointed and prayed for by J. Walter and Emma B. Malone, and it pleased the Lord to answer prayer and heal her." Believing that God had healed her of cancer, Norris began preaching in revivals.

Maps Susan Norris Fitkin

Early ministry

In 1893 Norris became pastor of a church in Vermont where she had previously held a revival. Another pastorate followed in Vermont. Norris was listed as a "recorded" (or official) minister in the Friends Church.

Evangelistic ministry

In 1895, at the urging of a leading New York Quaker, Norris returned to evangelism. At a camp meeting in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Clintondale, New York, Norris claimed to be entirely sanctified. Norris had sought the experience of entire sanctification and had previously claimed it by faith several times, and had preached often on the doctrine, but was still unsatisfied in her experience. Norris desired "to be sanctified wholly, cleansed from inherited sin, the old man cast out, the carnal nature destroyed, and to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire.". After, what she later described as a "battle with the enemy", at the conclusion of the service Norris responded to the altar call and claimed the experience despite an absence of emotion.

At the camp meeting where she was sanctified entirely, Norris met Abram Fitkin, a Quaker evangelist. For the next six months Norris was teamed with Abram Fitkin. During their six months of itinerant ministry in New York state, Norris borrowed books on holiness from Abram Fitkin, and many became Christians through their ministry. According to Basil Miller: "This attraction grew into love, and at length love had its way".

On May 14, 1896, Susan Norris and Abram E. Fitkin were married by William Thomas Willis (born October 1832), a Quaker minister, former pastor of the Clintondale Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends at Clintondale, New York (1885-1889), and then resident Quaker minister, at his home in Clintondale

After their wedding, the Fitkins continued to hold revival meetings "throughout the eastern states in campaigns when hundreds were converted and many led into the experience of full salvation". In mid-June 1896 the Clintondale Pentecostal Church was organized after another revival campaign, with future Nazarene General Superintendent Rev. Hiram F. Reynolds, then a Methodist minister, deciding to join at that time.

Pastoral ministry

In October 1896 the Fitkins rented a former blacksmith shop in Hopewell Junction, New York, where they conducted their services, with the result that "scores were converted", and on November 1, 1896, sixty of the converts were organized into a church, with the Fitkins agreeing to be the pastors. At Abram Fitkin's recommendation, the church affiliated with the newly established Association of Pentecostal Churches of America (APCA), a holiness denomination led at that time by William Howard Hoople. Soon after the Fitkins started another church in Cornwall, New York, which they also pastored. In April 1897 Abram Fitkin was dropped from membership by the Marlborough Monthly Meeting because he has become a member of another denomination. In 1898 Abram Fitkin was ordained as a minister in the APCA at Brooklyn.

By 1900 the Fitkins were co-pastors of the APCA church in South Manchester, Connecticut, where they lived in a rented house on Main Street. On April 12, 1900, Susan Fitkin was elected president of the APCA's Women's Foreign Missionary Auxiliary at its second annual meeting, held in Saratoga, New York. During the last four months of 1900, the Fitkins devoted their efforts to traveling evangelism.

As a consequence of the depressed economic circumstances caused by the Panic of 1893, Abram Fitkin struggled financially while serving as a pastor and evangelist, with little financial support possible from the church. Basil Miller records: "those years at the turn of the century were marked with struggle. There were times when the food on the parsonage table had literally been prayed in by Abram and Susan. ... Week by week a soup-bone graced the parsonage larder, the meat of which served the first day or so, the bone at length, mixed by a skillful hand with vegetables, becoming soup to end the week.

During 1903 Abram Fitkin left pastoral ministry and ceased his evangelistic work to devote his attention to making sufficient income to support both his family and his future ministry. Fitkin announced: "It is better to be a good businessman than a poor minister." Abram Fitkin admitted to his friend, Rev. E. G. Anderson, that at first he only aimed to make enough to be independent in God's work. The goal he set was a half million.

By 1904 the Fitkins moved to Everett, Massachusetts, where Susan Fitkin became the pastor of the APCA church. Abram and Susan Fitkin had four children: A. Raleigh (born September 3, 1904 in Everett, Massachusetts; died September 7, 1914); Mary-Louise (born June 12, 1907 in Swampscott, Massachusetts; died August 17, 1987 in Klamath Falls, Oregon); Willis Carradine (born October 10, 1908 in Hollis, New York; died Meredith, New Hampshire); and Ralph MacFarland (born March 7, 1912; died July 16, 1962 in Dade County, Florida).

In 1907 the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America merged with the Church of the Nazarene founded in California in October 1895 by Phineas Bresee and Joseph Widney to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (since 1919 renamed Church of the Nazarene), automatically making the Fitkins members of the new denomination. By the end of 1907 the Fitkins and their two children moved to Brooklyn, New York because of Abram Fitkin's increased business activities. In 1907 the Fitkins became members of the John Wesley Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene located at the corner of Saratoga Avenue and Sumpter Street, Brooklyn, then pastored by William Howard Hoople. Their third child, Willis Carradine, named in honor of holiness evangelist Beverly Carradine, was born on October 10, 1908 in Hollis, Queens By April 1910 the Fitkins lived in their own home on Wallis Avenue, Queens, New York. While living here, their fourth child, Ralph MacFarland was born March 7, 1912.

Despite being set apart for the ministry 18 years earlier as a Quaker recorded minister, on May 8, 1909 at the New York District Assembly at Brooklyn, Bresee ordained Susie Fitkin and her husband as elders. Susan later wrote: "This was a memorable occasion, but it was only the human sanction to God's work. For years before, He had definitely spoken these precious words to my heart, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.' And had He not verified it again and again?"

After a fishing trip with his father in August 1914, Raleigh Fitkin was thrown from their car after its axle broke. Miller records: "Though badly frightened, father and son seemed to be uninjured. The next day when Raleigh said that he had a severe abdominal pain, the family at first thought it a mere recurrence of appendicitis attacks, which previously had passed off with no after effects." Despite an operation in a home in Allenhurst, New Jersey and the efforts of six physicians, on September 14, 1914, Raleigh died. Raleigh, who was "the light of the father's eye", had testified to becoming a Christian at age 6, had indicated that he wanted to be a missionary to Africa. Raleigh's funeral was held in Allenhurst, New Jersey.

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Missions ministry and philanthropy

The death of their oldest son Raleigh Fitkin was the primary factor in the missionary and philanthropic enterprises of the Fitkins. According to Basil Miller: "The lad Raleigh was to play an important role in the family's missionary future. ... [T]he boy's interest in missions prompted his father Abram to build at a cost of thousands of dollars the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Africa". Abram Fitkin's ability to make money financed his wife's ministry,

into which her husband's generosity in the span of his life poured a fortune. For during the days of her active service, she was to cover the foreign world more extensively than any church sire or leader among the Nazarenes. All of this was made possible by Abram's midas' touch. Traveling more than a half-million missionary miles, she did so without cost to the church she loved so deeply. Likewise she contributed through Mr. Fitkin's successes the expenses of her companion on home and foreign trips, as well as making liberal missionary donations. In the dim backdrop of this was Raleigh, whose missionary zeal and interest so touched his father's heartstrings that he could but be generous with God's work and philanthropic causes.

In partnership with General Superintendent and Foreign Missions Secretary Hiram F. Reynolds, Susan Fitkin dedicated her energies to promoting the missionary program of the Church of the Nazarene in her capacity as the unpaid founding president of the Nazarene Women's Missionary Society for almost 33 years from September 30, 1915. Referring to Abram's role, Basil Miller indicates: "Throughout the years of Mrs. Fitkin's missionary travels as president of the W.F.M.S., he financed liberally all her expenses as well as those of her companions en route. In addition there were large gifts directly to missionary causes, these amounts going far over the ten thousand mark in some years".

Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Church of the Nazarene, Swaziland (1916)

Early in 1916 Susan Fitkin began dreaming of building a missionary chapel in Africa in memory of Raleigh. Abram Fitkin provided the funds to construct the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial church, "the first tangible memorial to that would-be child missionary, Raleigh", at Piggs Peak, Swaziland.

Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, Piggs Peak, Swaziland (1919-1925)

In October 1916 the Fitkins advised Hiram F. Reynolds, a general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene and head of its foreign missionary program, that they would "provide the money for the erection of a memorial hospital in Africa." The Fitkins donated funds to build the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, a small 18-bed facility built on the Nazarene mission compound at Piggs Peak, Swaziland from April 1919, and opened in 1920. By 1919 the Nazarene mission station at Piggs Peak, formerly known as the Camp Station, was renamed the Fitkin Memorial Station. In 1925 the Swaziland government granted 35 acres of land fifty miles further south at Bremersdorp to the Church of the Nazarene for a hospital closer to the population centre of the country. After the opening of the new Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital in 1927, the old hospital building was used to house a portion of the Piggs Peak Nazarene Primary School.

By January 1920 the Fitkins resided at 271 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn. However, by December 1926, the Fitkins and their family lived at 8 Remsen Street, Brooklyn.

Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, Bremersdorp, Swaziland (1927)

Excluding the $10,000 contributed by members of the Church of the Nazarene from 1926, the Fitkins and Mrs Ada E. Bresee were the principal donors of the substantial amount given to build the replacement 80-bed Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital (RFMH) for the Church of the Nazarene in Bremersdorp, Swaziland. By June 1925 the first stage was dedicated, and on July 16, 1927, RFMH hospital was dedicated by Susan Norris Fitkin.

By June 1927, the Fitkins lived at a large estate, called "Milestones", that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean at 16 and 18 Corlies Avenue (at the corner of Ocean Avenue), Allenhurst, New Jersey. After a trip to California, Fitkin relocated the original colonial house to the rear of the property, and had a 20-room, 3-story bungalow constructed in its place for the family residence. At noon on June 14, 1927 the Fitkins' only daughter, Mary-Louise, married Esley Foster Salsbury (1907-1993) at "Milestones", in a ceremony conducted by her cousin, Rev. Chauncey David Norris. On October 21, 1927, Willis C. Fitkin married Helen Shubert at the St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. The Fitkins also paid off the $50,000 mortgage of the John Wesley Church of the Nazarene, where they held their church membership since 1907. In 1927 the Fitkins gave $14,000 for Nazarene missions.

Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Institution, New Jersey (1927)

By July 1927 Abram Fitkin bought a 160 acre farm on the south side of the county road between Colt's Neck and Scobeyville, New Jersey for $26,000, which included an apple and peach orchards, crops, livestock, farm machinery, outbuildings and a century-old fifteen room house, which Fitkin intended to have enlarged and remodeled in order to use as an orphanage. Later in 1927 Abram Fitkin donated $1,000,000 to build and endow the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Institution, a hospital and home for crippled children on the state highway, between Eatontown and Freehold in Shrewsbury Township, New Jersey. The plans included the purchase of 200 acres to establish a self-supporting farm to fund the Institute.

Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Pavilion for Children, Connecticut (1928-1930)

On June 15, 1928 Abram Fitkin donated $1,000,000 to Yale University for the care and treatment of children in memory of his oldest son, Raleigh, with $500,000 for the study of children's diseases, and another $500,000 for the construction of a 125-bed hospital at the New Haven Hospital at 789 Howard Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, to be designed by Henry Colden Pelton (born October 18, 1868 in New York; died on August 28, 1935, in New York City), who had previously designed Christodora House (1928), the Babies and Children's Hospital of New York at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center (1928), and the Riverside Church (1930).

Escalating construction costs resulted in Abram Fitkin donating an additional $100,000 in June 1929 to build the now larger six-story 136-bed Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Pavilion for Children. Abram Fitkin's donation allowed the expansion and consolidation of pediatric inpatient facilities in a single building, close to the departmental offices and clinic facilities. Abram Fitkin dedicated the hospital on February 8, 1930, however at that time only two of five floors of the Fitkin buildings were assigned to pediatrics. According to Howard Pearson, "Fifty inpatient beds were on Fitkin 3 and Fitkin 4, and included two air-conditioned rooms for premature infants. The outpatient clinic had 20 examining rooms on the third floor of the Clinic Building. There were two pediatric infectious disease wards on the second floor of the Isolation Building. This set-up remained essentially the same for the next 25 years". The Fitkin wards remained the inpatient pediatric service at the hospital until the 1980s.

Also in 1928 $1,000,000 was given to create the Ralph Fitkin Ward Unit in honor of Fitkin's youngest son for the "study and treatment of diseases of childhood".

Raleigh Fitkin-Paul Morgan Memorial Hospital, New Jersey (1930)

By May 1930, in order to honor his deceased son, and also A.E. Fitkin & Co. Vice-President Paul L. Morgan (born about 1896; died March 1929), who died of pneumonia at the age of 32, Abram Fitkin contributed $500,000 to the Spring Lake Hospital Society to build the Fitkin-Morgan Memorial Hospital at Corlies Avenue in Neptune Township, New Jersey. On November 19, 1930 Fitkin laid one of the cornerstones for the hospital, which was opened on Thursday, November 19, 1931. The hospital was founded as "a voluntary non-profit, general hospital "with the aim of providing "medical and surgical care and nursing service to the sick and injured who need the services of the hospital, regardless of their ability to pay".

In 1966 the hospital's corporate name was changed to Jersey Shore University Medical Center - Fitkin Hospital.

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Later years and death

Susan Norris Fitkin died on October 18, 1951, aged 81, in Oakland, California. She is interred in Brooklyn, New York.

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Family

Abram and Susan Fitkin had four children.

Abram Raleigh Fitkin

Abram Raleigh Fitkin (born September 3, 1904 in Everett, Massachusetts; died September 7, 1914);

Mary-Louise Hooper

Mary-Louise Fitkin Hooper (born June 12, 1907 in Swampscott, Massachusetts), was a member of the Church of the Nazarene from childhood, attended Adelphi Academy at Lafayette Avenue, St. James Place and Clifton Place, Brooklyn, New York, and studied at Stanford University for one year until June 1928.

Esley Foster Salsbury (1928-1938)

Mary-Louise married Esley Foster Salsbury (born August 28, 1907 in Canada; died June 13, 1993 in Los Angeles, California) on June 14, 1928 at "Milestones", the Fitkin home in Allenhurst, New Jersey; In April 1930 the Salsburys lived with Susan Norris Fitkin in Oakland, California. They had one child, Suzanne Mary Salsbury (born December 7, 1933 in Berkeley, California), who attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Berkeley, California, and on December 1950 married artist Lloyd David Cogley (born March 5, 1917 in San Francisco; died February 2, 1992 in Klamath Falls), and they subsequently had five sons.

Karl Josef Deissler (1938-1946)

By August 1938 Mary-Louise had married Dr. Karl Josef Deissler (born June 29, 1906 in Heidelberg, Germany; died August 15, 1998 in Bern, Switzerland), a German physician, who had fled Germany for the USA in 1931 because of his liberal ideas and fears of Nazi persecution, and had been a fellow of the Mayo Clinic from 1931 to 1935, who was excluded from the US western defense area on September 4, 1942 until November 17, 1943 as an enemy alien, During their period of separation, Mary-Louise and her daughter lived in Illinois. The Deisslers divorced in 1946, and Mary-Louise and Suzanne moved to Carmel, California.

Clifford Hooper (1947-1949)

In late 1947 Mary-Louise married Clifford Hooper, an African American whom she had met while campaigning for the NAACP, in Seattle, Washington, as the laws of California did not allow inter-racial marriages. After living in Vancouver, British Columbia for a year, the Hoopers separated, and were divorced in 1949. By June 1950 Mary Louise had become a Quaker. Hooper returned to Stanford University in 1953 to complete her degree, majoring in German, graduating with honors in June 1955. Mary-Louise Hooper, who had been "long active in volunteer work to better inter-racial relations", was also "an active supporter of African struggles against colonialism and apartheid". After a three-month tour of South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, with a group of Quakers in 1955, Hooper migrated to South Africa later that year, buying a home in Durban, South Africa. Hooper supported the African National Congress, described at one time as "the only white person to ever work inside the African National Congress", campaigned for the abolition of apartheid, and worked as a volunteer aide and secretary to ANC president Chief Albert Luthuli. Hooper was active in supporting those tried during the Treason Trial. Hooper, who had moved to Hillbrow, a suburb of Johannesburg, was arrested on March 10, 1957 and imprisoned for five days in what she described as "degrading and humiliating" conditions in the Fort Prison in Johannesburg, and was ordered to be deported from South Africa after being accused of assisting South African "negroes". Hooper was freed by the Rand Supreme Court on a writ of habeas corpus, and later awarded damages. On May 14, 1957 Eben Dönges, the Interior Minister, ordered her deportation as he believed her presence in South Africa was not in the public interest. After leaving South Africa voluntarily at the end of May 1957, she was excluded by the South African government, but continued to be active in her opposition to apartheid, including giving interviews on radio, and television; raising funds for the South African Defense Fund; serving as one of the three ANC delegates to the first All-African Peoples' Conference in December 1958 in Accra, Ghana; and one of only two American observers at the Third All-African Peoples' Conference in Cairo in March 1961; organizing boycotts of South African goods and preventing the unloading of South African ships in January 1963; spoke to churches, and civic organizations; and writing articles. Hooper worked for the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), helped initiate and organize the 1965 Declaration of American Artists Against Apartheid, which sought to prevent cultural contacts with the apartheid regime; testified before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in May 1967, and invited Martin Luther King, Jr to speak at the 1965 South Africa Benefit, where he called for economic sanctions against South Africa. Hooper also supported the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), in its efforts to gain independence for Algeria from France, writing Refugee Algerian Students in 1960. Mary-Louise died in Klamath Falls, Oregon on August 14, 1987.

Willis Carradine Fitkin

Willis Carradine "Bud" Fitkin (born October 10, 1908 in Hollis, New York; died November 8, 1980 in Meredith, New Hampshire); attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn; In July 1924 Willis, then aged 15, was the driver of a car that was involved in a collision in New Jersey with a truck loaded with eggs, that damaged both vehicles severely but left both drivers uninjured. On October 22, 1927 at the St Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, W.C. Fitkin married Helen E. Shubert (born August 12, 1906 in Minnesota; died May 29, 1993 in Mahopac, New York) They had four children: Abraham Edward Fitkin (born 13 June 13, 1929 in Long Brant, Monmouth County, New Jersey; died March 17, 1992 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), Willis C. Fitkin, III (born about 1931), Joyce Fitkin Pietri (born about 1933), and Karen E. Fitkin Draper.

Fitkin was a vice-president, director and stockholder in A.E. Fitkin & Co. and A.E. Fitkin & Sons since 1932; president and chairman of Michigan Gas Utilities Co since April 1953; a member of the board of directors of Tampa Electric Co. until 1979; and was a member of the board of trustees of the Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Neptune, New Jersey from its opening in November 1931. He resided in Naples, Florida since 1955.

Ralph MacFarland Fitkin

Ralph MacFarland Fitkin (March 7, 1912 - July 16, 1962), attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn until 1930, attended Yale University in 1931-1932, married Lorene Billie Hastings (born November 6, 1911; died 1987) on February 13, 1932 in Elkton, Maryland with no family members present; and had three sons: Reed Keawaiki Fitkin (born September 22, 1939), Thomas Hastings Fitkin (born 1943; died 1945), and Scott Norris Fitkin (born August 8, 1945 in Hawaii). Ralph Fitkin was a vice-president, director and stockholder in A.E. Fitkin & Co. and A.E. Fitkin & Sons since 1932; served as a lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II, working in the cable censor's office in Hawaii, before retiring from the US Navy as a lieutenant commander; and was the owner of KHON in Honolulu, Hawaii, (which was part of the Aloha Broadcasting Company, which also included KTOH Lihue Kauai, KMVI Wailuku Maui, and KIPA Hilo), from its founding in 1946 until at least 1952. Fitkin, who resided at Greenwich, Connecticut, died on July 16, 1962 in Dade County, Florida.

Legacy

The Fitkin Memorial Church of the Nazarene (recently Fitkin's Memorial Church of the Nazarene), established at 1110 38th Avenue, Meridian, Mississippi by January 1948, was one of the oldest African-American congregations in the Church of the Nazarene.

Upon the occasion of her retirement in June 1948 after almost 33 years as its unpaid general president, the Nazarene Women's Foreign Missionary Society decided to honor her by raising $50,000 to establish the Fitkin Memorial Training School on the new Nazarene mission field in Ji'an, Jiangxi, China. Eventually almost $75,000 was raised by members of the Church of the Nazarene for this project. The Fitkin Memorial Bible School was opened on October 12, 1948 with 26 students.

However, after the departure of Nazarene missionaries from China in May 1949, the balance of funds given for the Fitkin Memorial School in Daming were reallocated to educational projects in other countries, including $9,000 sent to British Honduras, where the Fitkin Memorial Nazarene Bible College of British Honduras was opened in Benque Viejo del Carmen on June 8, 1950, but closed in 1965; Japan, where $25,000 was allocated to construct the building that housed the new Nippon Nazarene Seminary in Tokyo, which was christened the Susan N. Fitkin Memorial Building, and dedicated on April 13, 1952; and $9,000 to the Philippines, where it was used to fund the construction of the Fitkin Memorial Bible Training School (later Luzon Nazarene Bible College and now Philippine Nazarene College) in La Trinidad, Benguet in July 1952, with an initial enrolment of 35 students, which was named in honor of Susan Norris Fitkin, who had died in 1951; and Lebanon, where land was purchased in the suburb of Sioufi, in the Achrafieh district of east Beirut, and a five-story building constructed in 1953 that housed a church and the Fitkin Memorial Nazarene Bible School, which operated from October 1954 until 1969.

Works

1927. A Trip to Africa. New York.
1928. A Brief History of the Woman's Missionary Society, Church of the Nazarene, 1915-1927. Kansas City, MO: Woman's Missionary Society.
1929. Under Tropical Skies. Kansas City, MO.: Nazarene Publishing House.
1929. Over in Old Mexico. Kansas City, MO.: Nazarene Publishing House.
ca. 1930. Grace Much More Abounding: A Story of the Triumphs of Redeeming Grace During Two Score Years in the Master's Service. Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House; Holiness Data Ministry, 1997.
1937. ________ and Emma B. Word. Nazarene Missions in the Orient. Kansas City, MO.: Nazarene Publishing House.
1940. Holiness and Missions.
1950. "Confirmed by Fifty Years of Experience". In The Second Work of Grace, 51-53. Ed. D.S. Corlett. Kansas City, MO: Nazarene.

Susan Norris Fitkin

Rabu, 14 Februari 2018

Susan Norris Fitkin

Video Susan Norris Fitkin