3.4 3.5 the administration of mary hill davis, 1906-20  (Page 35/6)

"Gifted by nature . . . enriched by grace" and "fortunately circumstanced by time and place as one of God's own chosen messengers" was the tribute paid Mary Hill Davis when she retired in 1931 after serving twenty-five years as president of the Texas WMU. Mrs. W. J. J. Smith, quoting a tribute made by Willie T. Dawson in 1928. It accurately describes the conviction of Baptist women that she was born to lead them into the dawning of God's new day, a future of which she so grandly and frequently spoke in vivid oratorical style. As recording secretary under Lou Williams's presidency from 1898 to 1906, she displayed energetic leadership and literary skill so effectively that she was the overwhelming choice to succeed that "noble woman to whom she was bound with singular devotion." Ibid. Taking the helm of an institution whose detractors were finally pacified and whose organizational apparatus was in order conceptually, if not actually, she provided a blend of administrative skill and inspiration that by 1920 had increased the number of local societies by a multiple of five and the amount of contributions by twelve. Within a decade of her assuming office, a woman wrote in the Baptist Standard (and was not contradicted): "It is conceded that no part of our work is better organized than is the work of Baptist women." BS, January 20, 1916, p. 14.

Mary Hill was born in Georgia, but came to Dallas in 1870 when still a small child. She was a lifelong member of First Baptist Church. She married a physician, F. S. Davis, and had one son who also became a doctor. A comfortable life that included servants and a three-story brick home afforded her the opportunity to give her prodigious talents and energy to volunteer work, as did thousands of other women of her generation who, as members of churches and club federations, were an important force in America's social and cultural life. Mrs. Davis was darkly handsome and displays a confident, penetrating gaze in her portraits. Often described in terms of a queen, she was "by all accounts, a charming woman." I. Hunt, p. 33. Her annual addresses were considered literary gems by Texas Baptists and were published as Living Messages .

The twenty-five-year-old organization of which Mary Davis assumed leadership had grown from 12 to 350 societies and its annual collections from $35 to over $50,000, but its transformation had barely kept pace with the rapid changes in Texas life in general. The discovery of oil and the demographic shift to urban centers were changes of a magnitude to make history books, but everyday existence on an individual scale had been altered in equally significant ways. Those twenty-five years had brought gas and electrical energy to many homes, providing light, refrigeration, and other remarkable conveniences. Telephones had become commonplace and automobiles were on their way.

In an attempt to keep abreast of organizational advances, the BWMW decided early in the century to adopt an apportionment method of providing for budgetary demands. (The WMU-SBC had begun using such a plan in 1895 in order to give each state a goal for its annual collections.) The BWMW added expenditures for state projects to its WMU apportionment and divided the total proportionally among the associational unions. The plan immediately began to raise the amount of collections, part of that rise being attributable to the addition of a collection agent in closer contact with the local society than was the state corresponding secretary-treasurer. The plan was naturally most effective in areas where associational unions were strong, but there were still many scattered women's groups without such affiliation, particularly in sparsely populated areas of the state. In addition, the seventy-four associational unions functioning by 1908 became an unwieldy number for the corresponding secretary-treasurer to oversee. A committee recommended, therefore, that the state be divided into twelve districts whose boundaries would follow the lines of congressional districts, and upon Mary Gambrell's proposal to the convention, the plan was adopted. Elli Moore Townsend took a leave from Baylor College and spent 1909-10 helping the districts organize. All district presidents were named and in place at the 1910 meeting for the first time, and collections showed a rise to $77,731.70.