author
1860–1935
A pioneering missionary educator, she spent decades helping establish Brethren in Christ missions in what are now Zimbabwe and Zambia. Her 1915 book offers a vivid firsthand account of early mission life in southern Africa.
Born in Ohio in 1860, she was the daughter of Henry Davidson, an early Brethren in Christ leader and editor. Sources say she studied at Ashland College and earned BA and MA degrees from Kalamazoo College, and later taught at McPherson College in Kansas.
In the late 1890s, she joined the small group that founded the Brethren in Christ mission at Matopo in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. She later helped establish the Macha mission in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, where she led educational work, supervised the mission for many years, and took part in Bible translation work.
She is best remembered as the author of South and South Central Africa: A Record of Fifteen Years' Missionary Labors Among Primitive Peoples (1915), a substantial firsthand narrative that remains an important source on the denomination's early work in Africa. After returning to the United States, she taught at Messiah College in Pennsylvania and also served as a missions editor for her church's paper before her death in 1935.