Margaret Bottome
Biography and Correspondence
Margaret McDonald Bottome (Dec. 29, 1827-Nov. 14, 1906) was a religious leader born and raised in New York City. Her father died in 1852, leaving his widow and eighteen children. Margaret was the eldest and had just gotten married to a Methodist preacher, Rev. Frank Bottome. She remained a devout Methodist, as did many of her siblings, throughout her life.
After giving informal talks on the Bible to women, she along with a group of nine other women formed a permanent group in 1886. This group focused on Bible study and Christian service to others, and they named themselves “Kings Daughters.” Each of the women formed a group of ten, and those women did the same. By 1887 men had joined the movement, which eventually became the International Order of the King’s Daughters and Sons. She wrote a column for the Ladies Home Journal called “Heart to Heart Talks.” Her books include: Our Lord’s Seven Questions After Easter (1889), Crumbs from the King’s Table (1894), and Death and Life (1897).
The International Order of the King’s Daughters and Sons still exists, headquartered in Chautauqua, New York. There various “circles” have been active in supporting ministry scholarships, thrift stores, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and child care centers. They have also supported Native American ministries since 1934.
New York
Nov. 1903
It was such a torrid fizzle- his language was frightful calling people Skunk, Pol’s, etc. etc.- he missed such an opportunity for really the attitude of the best people was if he can do any good we bid him welcome, but I never saw anything like it- it seemed as if he was led of Satan- his followers were to be pitied. They were really respectable people- all did what they could, but he has injured himself in their sight. He was so dreadful in regard to the press that of course they turned on him. I would not have been in that Madison Ave. Garden, not for anything. He made no converts- did nothing but injure his cause. He is lingering here a few days, but no attention is being paid to him. I started off in sending you the papers but I must have sent them to Melie if you did not get them.
The last excitement has been the death of Mrs. Booth Tucker of the Salvation Army- was killed in a railway accident a few days ago, and such a dreadful mistake was made at the funeral. I do not know where the real right or the real wrong doth lie, but it brought up the separations of the family again, and her own brother Ballington Booth did not attend the funeral of his own sister, such a pitiful picture before the inside and outside at Church. The question would arise “is that Christianity?”
O Hannah, God is longsuffering and of tender mercy.
I am so sorry I have to send off this miserable little letter to you when I mean to have written something so different but I send lots of love,
Yours dutifully,
Thy M. Bottome
(Margaret Bottome)
Note: A note on this partial letter indicates that the subject mentioned at the beginning in John Alexander Dowie, a Scottish faith healer who claimed to be “Elijah the Restorer” to announce the second return of Christ. He built a large following in Chicago, near where he also established his utopian headquarters in the city of Zion. On Oct. 18, 1903, he brought his evangelists on a crusade to convert New York City, where he rented out Madison Square Gardens for two weeks. The event was a colossal failure for his Christian Catholic Church, which ultimately led to him being deposed and fleeing abroad to avoid his creditors.
Emma Moss Booth-Tucker was the fourth child of Catherine and William Booth. She and her husband were posted to the Salvation Army in the U.S. in 1896, after her brother Ballington and his wife Maud left the Salvation Army rather than be reassigned abroad. Ballington and his wife started Volunteers of America along the same lines as the Salvation Army.
