My presentation today serves as an exploration of 1 particular
woman who seemed to transcend the traditional norms of society
in both medical and Pentecostal fields in the early 1900s.
Doctor Lillian Yeomans.
I think doctor Ambrose's question was really neat. Some
nice little segue.
Doctor Lillian Yeomans was the first female licensed physician.
In Winnipeg, significant to our conference theme, her story is
set between both Holiness and Pentecostal worlds.
So I'm Heather Robinson. I'm a student here at Tindale and the
Masters of Theology program specializing in Pentecostal
studies under the brilliant direction of Doctor Van Johnson.
I think it is such a privilege to be here today, and I am so
honored that you have come to hear my presentation.
Let me start by saying how stretched I feel to write a
paper like this. I don't really consider myself a feminist.
Through my studies of Pentecostalism, I have become
familiar with its female pioneers. It's theological basis
for gender equality in Acts 2, where Joel two is quoted as
declaring the spirit has been poured out on all flesh.
Despite my discomfort, I think there is value in how looking at
how the power structures developed in the 1st 25 years of
Pentecostalism through various lenses, historical, Pentecostal
and gendered. This study has implications for us today as we
continue to work through gender equality issues in our churches.
In the words of Linda Ambrose are one of our keynote speakers
today in a co-authored article with Leah Payne.
Says quote gender history can give women leaders specific
ideas about how to thrive, and at the same time serves as a
cautionary tale that women and ministry have always faced
particular gender challenges, UN quote.
Doctor Ambrose also suggests that through a gender historical
studies we can discover forgotten Pentecostal
foremothers. And this is important because women of today
need to see role models and celebrate their heroes. Adding
such women not only allows us to consider the experiences of
these early heroines of faith in their own right, but.
As one recovers and analyzes these experiences of these
lesser known women, the ways in which they defied the prescribed
gender roles are unmistakable, UN quote, and I think it's
brilliant all of the ways we have seen today.
So today's presentation is going to focus on 3 aspects of Doctor
Lillian yeoman's life. Her calling, her credentials in
Canada through the Holiness Association and her credentials
in the United States through the Assemblies of God. My background
in the sciences has led me to extensive microscope work. The
microscopes I traditionally used had three lenses, and through
each lens you would see a different detail.
Kind of like the specimens I stuck up there.
Getting closer and closer.
Today I'm going to use the same metaphor to organize this
presentation. The historical lens allows us to look at the
first source documents, the calling and credentials. The
Pentecostal lens allows us to examine the spiritual component
of why she was considered a Pentecostal pioneer. And as most
of the literature ends there, this presentation is going to
focus through the gendered lens. This lens allows us to look past
the spirit rhetoric and look closer at the relationships of
power between men and women.
Which are often the perceived differences between the sex. It
also allows us to identify how these women transcended or
defied their gender roles, along with giving us the ability to
explain why they were unable or unwilling to do so.
Through these lenses, we will examine how Doctor Lillian
Yeomans was able to succeed when particular roles were considered
inappropriate for women, according to the times.
So you need a little bit of background if you don't know
Doctor Lillian Yeomans.
Her father was a surgeon. After her father died in 1880, Lillian
decided to go to the medical school in Michigan, as Canadian
schools were not accepting women. Upon graduation, she
became the first licensed physician in Winnipeg.
Her mother, Amelia Yeomans, entered and graduated at the
Michigan Medical School a year later and joined her at her
practice. Lilly and Sister Amy joined them as a nurse a few
years later.
There are practice focused on prostitutes, homeless prisoners,
foreign born immigrants who didn't speak English. This led
her mother to align with the Women's Christian Temperance
Union and eventually started the Dominion Equal franchise to
fight against white slavery, or what she called white slavery,
which was prostitution, prohibition and suffrage,
leading to her becoming a popular public speaker.
And was often absent from the practice.
I get the practice. Lillian started taking morphine and
chloral to help with her nerves and her sleep. It was in nine or
1894 that she realized that she was hopelessly addicted. Nurses
would start to describe her as the devil inside of a skeleton,
attempting to quit trying. Various cures eventually left
her bedridden.
This is when she diligently started reading her Bible.
She felt the spirit speaking through Jeremiah 30 and Panika,
coastal historian Desiree Rogers describes.
Quote The Lord began to show her that to free herself from
addiction to get the victory was not her job, but God's.
When Lillian received divine healing, she was determined that
she was going to go into ministry. In her book healing
from Heaven, she writes quote.
I was in Chicago immediately after my healing.
And went one day to the Women's Temple to a noon prayer meeting.
When I walked in, I found a preacher talking about the awful
snares in which people who trifle with narcotic drugs,
including tobacco, get entangled.
He warned them to give them up entirely if they were tampering
with them, and then he sat down. I knew from experience they
couldn't give them up unless they took Jesus. So prompted by
the Holy Spirit, I rose up and asked if I may say a word.
It was not parliamentary for me to do this, but God was in it
and I got leave. And then I said I am glad for the good advice
our brother has given us and I want to tell you how to do it.
And I am speaking from the depths of my experience and I
told my story.
I think many of them didn't believe in divine healing before
I told it, but I don't believe there was one who didn't believe
it once I had finished UN quote.
Soon after this, Lillian and Annie returned to Canada,
shutting down the medical practice.
Lillian's mother went into full-time speaking and activism
on the suffrage movement and women's rights, and Lillian went
to serve as an evangelist.
So looking at this through a Pentecostal lens, this was her
account of the first time she told her testimony she had not
yet received spirit baptism. However, in the time of writing
this book in 1930, she had been teaching in many Pentecostal
settings. So I think it is safe to say that she is recalling
these lens through Pentecost or recalling these events through a
Pentecostal lens, which I think is why we see language like
prompted by.
The spirit.
And it's apparent from her testimony that if God was in it,
she would be allowed to speak her testimony, her testimony was
so powerful that others in the other audience stood and erupted
into song how great thou art, and began speaking their own
testimonies, encouraged that healing was for witness.
Through a gendered lens, we see Lillian is very aware that it
was not parliamentary for her to rise and speak in a church, even
at a woman's temple. It also appears that there was risk in
being afforded the opportunity, almost that, as if she didn't
expect it to be granted. However, the opportunity was
granted and it was effective.
Her testimony possibly functioned as what Leah Payne
describes as a way around traditional avenues to the
pulpit, such as seminary, education or denominal
orientation, similar to other women who claim to have received
an intense calling experience, which she and her followers
consider to be sufficient for her to be considered a minister.
Paint suggests we see success marked through the response it
recognized. Authoritative leader is defined through the
submission of followers to do what is asked of significance.
Lillian reports that an affluent male stood up and told about his
healing of drunkenness, and a male Doctor Who was so impressed
by the story eventually closed his practice and went into
ministry.
Lillian and her sister Amy, became ordained in the Canadian
Holiness Association to do missionary work among the Cree
people of North Winnipeg.
Although the Canadian Holiness Association disbanded soon
after, by 1900 Lillian was referring to herself as an
evangelist.
In 1907, Lillian moved to Calgary, where she received the
baptism of the Holy Spirit, which was noted in the Apostolic
Messenger, a Pentecostal newsletter out of Winnipeg.
Lillian started hosting Pentecostal services in her home
in Calgary. Her mother and sister were present. Spirit
baptism added new fervor to loveland's evangelistic efforts,
traveling extensively in Alberta and other parts of Canada,
doctor Lillian writes. Just before leaving California, which
was about 1920, my sister and I received an urgent call to host
meetings in a rural part of Alberta. We were soon hard at
work hosting meetings.
In schoolhouses and homes, visiting the sick and tarrying
with seekers for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we have the
joy of seeing God move in this blessed way.
From a Pentecostal lens, the meetings that Lillian and Amy
held in Alberta were effective because of the undeniable
charismatic quality of science following, such as spirit
baptisms and divine healing.
She describes people struck with heavenly lightning. Their
meetings were exemplars of the full gospel. Rather than seeing
persecution, we see them invited.
I would suggest that Liliana's journey gaining entry into the
medical system made her firmly aware of how to navigate the
patriarchal system and prevencial licensing. We see
that although Lillian gave up her practice, she did not give
up her medical license.
I would suggest under a gendered lens that gaining entry into the
medical school system made her firmly aware. Oh.
I already read that.
Sorry.
Um.
Oh, yes.
So Lillian wrote at least six books on divine healing, and she
never took away the MD after her name.
James off, in a presentation by the Canadian Historical Society
of Church History, makes the observation that Lillian's books
and a plethora of articles.
Um.
And she kept her MD on all of them. He suggested that her
attachment to the status reveals the importance.
Of professionalism and at the turn of the century it clearly
gave her indispensable authority in discussing matters of health.
I think that the other I also think, as a side note, that
Pentecostal preachers wouldn't have minded having a doctor
around to confirm divine healings that were taking place.
There are not many details about her credentialing through the
Canadian Holiness Association. Regardless, I think it's
important to highlight that she must have thought that they were
necessary to give them credibility as a missionary,
likely aiding to her authority to speak in church settings,
similar to the way her medical practice gave her the authority
to speak on healing and health.
Further, according to her ministry application with the
Assemblies of God, there was a question. How long have you been
in ministry? She answered. Since my healing of my morphine habit
in 1898, I have preached steadily since, and though I
have been engaged in work under the Dominion of Canada most of
the time.
Recall the Dominion of Canada was created by her mother who,
speaking on suffrage and women's rights, were in high demand.
Historian Carla Hacker describes her mother as a very witty
speaker, making points clearly and often amusingly. You didn't
fall asleep when Amelia Amelia Yeomans was giving a lecture,
and you weren't allowed to sleep afterwards either. Doctor
Emilia's speeches were often given to stir you into action,
and she saw that to it, that there was action. Whatever the
case, she was a tireless agitator. I bet you kind of wish
I got speaking advice from her before starting.
Lillian describes her book in the Bomba Gillian.
That having an infamous mother opened the doors to the
opportunities for her to speak. I can always get a hearing in
Canada for people think I am my own mother and come to my
meetings.
This is what breaks the traditional gendered culture
that we expect in the Pentecostal movement. It is not
a father or husband or a man that opened the door. Instead,
it was her mother's influence that opened the doors. However,
it appears that Lillian realizes that there is an expectation
that she comes with her mother's messaging.
Well, Lillian realizes.
Probably alliance with the topics of refraining from
addictive substances. Her writings and articles that I'm
aware of do not speak of women's rights, voting, or feminism, but
rather emphasized salvation, spirit, baptism, and healing.
Now we're going to move on to credentialing in the United
States.
So in 1922, Lillian and her sister Amy both applied for
Egypt Angeles credentials through the Assemblies of God.
Why not the newly formed POC that established in 1919?
Well, there was a brief period where Western Canada decided to
join the Assemblies of God.
Before they announced national unity in 1925, so this process
would have happened during this transition point. It is also
possible that since Lillian had been writing for Carrie Judd
Montgomery's newsletter since 1917, there might have been a
motivation to move to California and help out at her healing
school.
Or, sorry, healing home.
Speculation aside, what we do know is indicated in her
credential file that in the first two years of holding
credentials, Lillian and Amy listed an address in California
and in Canada.
What is notable in this correspondence is Lillian writes
on behalf of her sister and herself to the Assemblies of
God, and there was a concern about receiving clergy rates on
the railroads.
A following letter concerns the receipt of credentials along
with acknowledgement of a circular sorry circular letter
to women workers that they agree to be governed by those
instructions. When I read this, I had to know what did they
agree to?
It is here that I have to acknowledge the excellent work
of Alice Harris Harris, the archive specialist from the
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Centre, because she thinks that
this is the correct letter.
It was written to address the particular issue where
credentialed women were being denied access to clergy rates on
the railroads because, quote, clergy bureaus have thought our
women preachers were not fully ordained and were not eligible
for clergy rates. UN quote. And if that it was true that women
were fully ordained, then quote, their ordination paper ought to
show it UN quote.
This letter explains that while not encouraging women to be
pastors quote, the executive Presbytery took it out and
authorized the Credential Committee to issue new
credentials to all of our ordained women who are actually
preaching the word the same way as ordained men do.
And these new credentials should state these women are authorized
to do so when these things are necessary.
So note in your credentials this limiting phrase when so such
acts are necessary.
It is not intended to encourage the women to do these things in
the future anymore than they did in the past.
They would be expected to do these things only when an
ordained man was not present to do them, or when such real
emergency makes it necessary for them to do so. UN quote.
The leather sorry. The letter further gives advice for when
the Bureau asks if they are authorized to always give the
answer yes. Further, they are only putting the unwritten
custom into black and white so that there cannot be or will be
no misunderstanding. Their final note of the advice is be careful
not to boast about having this authority or do anything.
To stir up opposition in places where they opposed women doing
these things. If through lack of wisdom you should let trouble
arise, this might compel the executive Presbytery to recall
all the new forms ending in a prayer of wisdom and peace and
unity.
Then it looks almost like an afterthought, which we'll see on
the next slide.
There we go.
The participants were instructed not to let the letter out of
their personal possession.
Through a Pentecostal lens, Edith Bloom Hoffer points out,
the scriptural justification for women in ministry is defined
differently than Canadian Pentecostalism.
Quote.
The Assemblies of God.
So is course in the statement in 1914 through Galatians 328. In
Christ, there is no male nor female. A passage that is often
used to support ministering women meant rather in the matter
of salvation. The lines of sex are blotted out.
Citing first Timothy 2, it is affirm that women were to be in
subject.
Subjection to men, but also acknowledge their call to
prophecy and be helpers in the gospel.
So, looking at this through gendered lens, the historian
Edith Blumenau offer points out that the ideal parameters for a
woman written in their newsletters was one issue of the
Evangel instructed the Brethren to submit applications for
railroad discounts. It urged women to simply trust in God for
the price of their full fare. UN quote.
However, Lillian and Amy were able to transcend the
expectation as we find the unspoken rules put into black
and white, and the sisters acknowledged and agreed to abide
by them in order to receive their credentials and their
clergy train rates. Perhaps they were unwilling to transcend
these gendered structures because it would have put all
women's credentials into jeopardy.
Further tensions with the denomination were high, as
Lillian and Amy Yeomans were receiving their credentials. Amy
Semple McPherson was, in contrast, returning hers.
There are a slew of reasons given for the tensions between
the AG and McPherson, such as her disappearance, her divorce,
possible affairs and what the AG viewed as elaborate spending.
However relevant to our discussion, bloom however
suggests that the women's views on women that led her to
returning credentials. Quote lurking in the background was an
uneasiness about ministering women, amys success for some to
confront their reservations about women. By 1922, however,
the dimensions of Mcpherson's work and the long held views of
some, especially in the Southern California district.
About appropriate rules for women combined to accelerate her
withdrawal from the Assemblies of God.
Angelus Temple A5000 seat auditorium opened the following
year, with McPherson setting, settling down to become the
pastor.
Although Lillian held evangelica. Sorry.
Evangelical put credentials until her death in 1942.
In that time of holding credentials, I found no
indication that she ever passed her to church. Rather, she took
out teaching positions in various Bible colleges, teaching
on divine healing, as well as traveling to both AG and
independent churches where she was invited.
I think teaching rather than pastoring both satisfied and
suited her calling, giving her flexibility to travel, and it
also kept her inside the rules of the expected gender roles
that the denomination had laid out in black and white.
So to summarize this presentation.
From a historical lens, we see that Doctor, Lillian Yeomans not
only was noticeably notable in becoming the first female doctor
in Winnipeg, but also noticeable in receiving credentials not
once, but twice through the Canadian Holiness Association
and the Assemblies of God.
From a Panama Costa lens, we see that Liliana's testimony of
divine healing opened the doors to her preaching engagements.
Spirit baptism renews her fervor as she held her Pentecostal
meetings in her home and was invited across Canada to speak
and hold meetings on Salvation, Spirit baptism, divine healing
with signs and wonders following.
Well, lesser known Doctor Lillian is recorded and
celebrated as a female Pentecostal pioneer in Alberta.
From a gendered lens, I suggest that her credentials were
important to Lillian Administry, perhaps just as important as her
medical credentials. They gave her the authority not only to
navigate the railways, but also to speak and teach on matters of
health and divine healing.
In Canada, it appears that it was her mother, rather than a
man, that opens the door to authority of her speaking
engagements.
In speaking, we observed that her mother focused on suffrage
and women's rights, contrasting with Lillian, who instead
focuses on salvation, spirit, baptism, and divine healing.
After being credentialed by the AG, I suggest that it appears
Doctor Lillian Yeomans was perhaps unwilling to transcend
the prescribed gender roles in her denomination, laid out in
black and white. She agreed to submit to male leaders when
present and not upset the status quo. And by choosing to teach in
various AG and independent churches all across the United
States and Canada, it likely served to satisfy her goal and
her calling.
In the end, Dr. Lillian Yeomans is a remarkable individual under
the three lenses and is promising for future research
and study.
As we have only had time to scratch the surface of what we
can learn through a gendered lens.