Athalia Lizzie Johnson Irwin (September 23, 1862 – October 6, 1915) was an American Universalist minister who broke gender barriers within her denomination. She was the first Southern-born woman to be ordained in the Universalist denomination and was also often the first female minister to serve in the pulpit of churches in the South and West. She was the first female editor of The Universalist Herald, a religious newspaper serving the American South. Irwin's ministerial career, which started later in life, was significantly influenced by two forces: Rev. Quillen Shinn, a venerable Universalist missionary, and the missionary zeal of the Young People's Christian Union (YPCU).
Early life
Athalia Lizzie Johnson was born on September 23, 1862, in El Dorado, Arkansas. She was the sixth child of the Baptist minister Rev. William C. Johnson (born 1825) and Elizabeth Jane Gray (1828–1870). Both her parents were raised, married, and gave birth to their first four children in Georgia. In 1856, Elder W.C. Johnson was ordained in the Baptist faith in Georgia as an "Evangelist of the Gospel Ministry." At this time, the Johnson family lived in Valley Plains in Harris County, Georgia, where Johnson made a living as a preacher/farmer.
Sometime in the late 1850s, Johnson moved his family to the rural city of El Dorado, Arkansas. Johnson served as a part-time minister to the El Dorado Baptist Church and the nearby Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church. However, as was typical for many preachers of this time, Johnson continued to support his family by farming. He was relatively prosperous. In 1860, just a few years after he arrived in Arkansas, he owned 30 acres of land, a lot in town, horses, cattle, and four enslaved people. Johnson's fortunes were reversed by the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1867, he was required to sell his land to settle debts and leave the pastorate of El Dorado Baptist Church.
Johnson then moved his family to Ladonia, located in the northwest corner of Texas. After the death of his wife in 1870, Johnson moved again, this time back to Georgia. He settled in Cuthbert, Georgia, where he lived with his children, Leila, Anne, Athalia, and another daughter, identified only as F.V. Johnson. At some point in the 1880s, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia , where newspaper accounts report that he was preaching in the city's Baptist churches.
Athalia's siblings were Ophelia C. Johnson (1847-DoD), Madison A. Johnson (1849-DoD), Mason Gray Johnson (1851-1915), Leila I. Johnson (1855-1931), Anne E. Johnson (1860-1948), and F.V. Johnson (1869-DoD).
The children were raised in the Baptist faith, with Mason following in his father's footsteps, becoming an ordained Baptist minister. In 1884, in Newnan, Georgia, her father baptized Athalia, 22, into the Baptist faith. At that time, Athalia worked as a bookkeeper for the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
Education
No information has been found regarding Athalia's early education. However, seven years into her Universalist ministry, Irwin paused her active ministry to attend the St. Lawrence Theological School (1908-1911) in Canton, New York. Her daughter, Mabel, and Marie Josephine Schaefer, a long-time assistant to Irwin, also attended school with her. Her husband, George, also relocated to Canton.
When entering her studies, Irwin had announced that she planned to focus on psychotherapeutic training. This choice of study, which centered on emotional, psychological, or spiritual issues through structured conversations, was consistent with sermons that Irwin recently delivered, including "Psychology of Prayer" and "Psycho-Therapy - The New Christian Healing; What is It?"
Upon graduation, Athalia earned her Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.). She, along with fellow graduating classmate H.W. Haynes, was chosen as the commencement speaker for their graduating class.
Following her graduation, Irwin moved to Canon, Georgia .
Marriage and Children
On May 27, 1886, Athalia, 24, married George W. Irwin (1845-1917), who was seventeen years her senior, in Atlanta, Georgia. The marriage announcement in The Atlanta Journal read
Her husband, the son of S.W. Irwin, a civil engineer, was born and educated in Cincinnati. When he married, he was living in Columbia, South Carolina. The news account of his marriage incorrectly referred to the groom as "Major G.W. Irwin." Although Irwin enlisted in the Union Army in 1863, he carried no rank into civilian life. However, he was commonly called "Captain" because of his involvement in local, amateur theatrical productions.
The Irwins had only one child, Mabel J. Irwin (1877-1974). Mabel never married and continued to live with her parents even as they traveled the country for her mother's ministry. She remained with her parents when they moved to Riverside, California. Later, she lived in Colton, Redondo Beach, and La Verne, California. Mabel was an educator, teaching high school from 1924 to 1952. She died in La Verne, California, at the Hillcrest Homes Infirmary.
As noted, the Irwins moved to Columbia, South Carolina, after their 1886 marriage. A few years after arriving in Columbia, Athalia opened her 12-room home at 1512 Sumter Street to boarders. Beginning in 1889, her large home was the center of Irwin's boarding house business. Three years later, in 1901, she sold the building and moved to Pensacola, Florida, to become the minister of the city's Universalist church.
Universalist Ministry Although Irwin came to Universalism late in life, she had a very active career both as a parish minister and as an influential leader within the denomination. Adoption of Universalism In 1898, while living in Columbia, Irwin withdrew her membership from the Baptist Church at the age of 36. She then dedicated her life to the Universalist cause. Irwin described this moment as a “release,” saying that her acceptance of Universalism was “a desire to be honest to herself and the church.” She commemorated the event in a poem she wrote that same day of her resignation from her Baptist faith, called “Gethsemane,” which includes this verse. I once was happy in the faith I this day yield, But nothing have I now my drifting life to shield.
The God whom I once loved I scorn as cruel, cold, I'd rather have no God than Him I loved of old.
Apart from her poem, Irwin left no record of what motivated her religious transformation. Martha W. Rimmer, in her treatment of Irwin, published in the 2005 edition of the Journal of Unitarian and Universalist History, offered a plausible explanation. Her marriage into an Ohio family with its Midwest associations offered her a contrast to her family's Southern Baptist orthodoxy. She lived in Columbia, South Carolina's capital, which exposed her to a diverse range of people and ideas. Her ownership of a boarding house placed her in direct contact with travelers trying to tap into the emerging new South economy.
Columbia was also the home of Rev. D.B. Clayton (1817-1906), a veteran Southern Universalist minister who preached throughout the state, including Columbia. Irwin became involved with the city's Universalist community. In a 1899 letter she wrote for the Universalist Herald, she shared a picnic experience.
Her involvement in her newly adopted faith and her visibility in Southern Universalism steady grew. She began to write a recurring column in the Universalist Herald entitled “Sunday School Lessons.” For her contributions, she was awarded the title of Associate Editor—an honorific title granted to faithful contributors to this Southern Universalist publication. She continued her column from 1899 to 1908.
She also engaged with her local Universalist community by attending the 1899 South Carolina Convention of Universalists, where she was elected secretary of the convention. The convention's keynote speaker was Rev. Quillen H. Shinn (1845-1907). Shinn was an indefatigable Southern Universalist missionary who planted the seeds of Universalist societies, earning him the title of the Grasshopper Missionary. Irwin's ministerial career became intertwined with Shinn and the Young People's Christian Union (Y.P.C.U.). Shinn was the group's national organizer. The Y.P.C.U., organized in 1890, was the Universalists’ youth group with a particular focus on missionary work to establish new Universalist societies.
Irwin shared her experience attending her first Young People's Christian Union annual meeting in 1900. She remarked, “First of all, I am impressed with the fact that I have identified with a great and loyal denomination.” She went on to compare the Universalist Church to a vine, and the Y.P.C.U. as the “tendrils which enable it to climb.”
Irwin also became involved in a newly formed enterprise called the Southern Industrial Institute, located in Camp Hill, Alabama. Irwin, along with Shinn, Clayton, Chapman, and other Universalists, was listed as a member of the Board of Trustees on the 1901 incorporation documents for this organization. However, this appointment to the Institute's board appears to have been honorary. Little evidence has been found to indicate that she substantially engaged in the operation of the school, which was designed to offer manual education to white rural students.
Just three years after adopting Universalism, Irwin received her license to preach in 1901. She credited Shinn with encouraging her to pursue a life in Universalist ministry. Americus, Georgia Despite having no formal ministerial training other than being the daughter of a Baptist minister, Athalia began her preaching career. Her first ministry was brief, consisting of a series of sermons she delivered in July 1901 at the Universalist Church of the Redeemer in Americus, Georgia. She continued to reside in Columbia and traveled to Americus only to deliver her sermon series.
Universalism was not unfamiliar in Americus. About twenty-five years earlier, Rev. L.F.W. Andrews (1802-1875), an early Southern Universalist minister and publisher of both denominational and secular newspapers, preached and lived in Americus. More recently, in 1900, Rev. Shinn had founded the Church of the Redeemer. The church's dedication took place in December of that year, attended by Rev. Shinn, Rev. Thomas Chapman, the Georgia State Missionary, and Rev. D.B. Clayton of Columbia. Irwin also participated in the planning for the church's dedication.
In the spring of 1902, the Americus church extended an offer to Irwin to be their called pastor, referring to her as “the best speaker in the Universalist church.” However, Irwin accepted a call from the Universalist church in Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola, Florida Irwin began her first full-time ministry at the First Universalist Church in Pensacola in 1902. The First Universalist Church was another society that Shinn organized in 1895. Three years later, in 1898, the church held a dedication for its new building on East Chase Street. The next year, the church reported that its society consisted of 36 families, 43 people in its Sunday school program, of which 19 formed a chapter of the Young People's Christian Union.
Since its founding, preaching services were provided by an array of ministers, including visits from Rev. Shinn, and other ministers who lived in Florida: Rev. John C. Burruss, former editor of the Universalist Herald, Rev. Everet Green, and Rev. R.P. Ambler from nearby DeFuniak Springs, who was once incorrectly identified as the pastor of the Pensacola Church. The most support came from Rev. F.L. Leavitt from nearby Brewton, Alabama, which was 60 miles north of Pensacola.