0.14 3.4 the administration of lou b. williams, 1895-1906.  (Page 3/5)

Our sister secretary is small in statue [sic], but is a regular Pike's Peak when it comes to intellect. Hers is a high plane of living and action. Some of us are trying mighty hard to keep even long distance with her, for that is as near as we ever hope to get to this inimitable personality. BS, June 8, 1899, p. 7. Mary Gambrell probably inspired more respect than intimacy.

A minister recalled that

[i]n the most practical part of education, culture, and refinement, she has always impressed me as a model. She may not even know it, but I have received from her some of my best ideas of music and clearest conceptions of Bible doctrine. She was by far the best Sunday-school teacher that I ever had. I found it an excellent thing for an ignorant green, timid young preacher to fall into her class. BS, March 3, 1898, p. 7.

Mary Gambrell's talents included writing and speaking, as well as music. The mission message that Fannie Davis's paper attempted to communicate to women was taken up by her in a woman's page in the state mission newspaper, The Missionary Messenger . In a spirit more akin to those who founded settlement houses rather than those who sought to convert the distant foreigner, she identified strongly with the downtrodden close to home. She constantly urged help for aged ministers, Texas Baptists' conscience on this issue was not raised until late in the century because they did not have a paid ministry until Reconstruction ended. See Carroll, pp. 449-455. and she became interested in all phases of the Home Mission Board's work with Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Although middle-aged and unfamiliar with the language, she learned to speak Spanish fluently, helped found a Mexican Preacher Institute, and made her home Mexican-Baptists' home in Dallas. Elliott, p. 230.

During Lou Williams' tenure as president—the decade surrounding the turn of the century—Mary Gambrell's annual reports reveal the kinds of activities women of the BWMW were continuing and adopting. The packing of "mission" or "frontier" boxes was a practice that harked back to the days of Ladies' Aid, but it was a project that Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Gambrell promoted, including the value of such boxes in the amount of total mission gifts. Reports indicated that preparing and packing a box aroused mission interest in those who had not shown such before, and the BWMW developed it into a "fine art": sending for descriptions and sizes of the orphans or missionary family, cutting and sewing new garments and bedding ("do not send anything that you would not gratefully receive yourselves") Proceedings of the BWMW of Texas, 1901, p. 172. and finally adding some cash or toys.

"Bible woman" was the name given by Baptists to women missionaries who taught other women and children, but in the growth of urban areas in the 1890s, a new version of that designation was born: "Bible women" who ministered to the spiritual and temporal needs of the urban poor. In 1893 four Bible women were appointed jointly with the Sunday-school Board, one to work in Austin with Swedes, one each for Corpus Christi and El Paso to work with Mexicans, and one for Dallas to work with "the Americans." The concept was so successful that by 1903, the BWMW set a goal "where possible, to employ a Bible woman in every town." Proceedings of the BWMW of Texas, 1903, p. 169. Reports of their work often contained a reassurance that they confined their teaching to women and children, usually going from house to house.