Woman of the Week

Evangelist Clementina Butler, who was born on January 7, 1862, is this week's Women of the Week.

• To learn about her by viewing her item, please click on her image.  

• To read her biographical sketch in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page number to the left of her image.

Evangelist Clementina Butler was born in Bareilly, India on January 7, 1862.  The daughter of Methodist Episcopal minister and evangelist Rev. William Butler and evangelist Clementina Rowe Butler, Clementina moved quite often during her childhood.  After leaving India, the Butlers moved to Mexico City, Mexico.  They returned to Newton Center, Massachusetts, in 1866.

Not surprisingly, Clementina became an evangelist, too.  In addition to founding the Committee on Christian Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields, she was a member of the American Ramabi Association and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.

After her father's death, Clementina wrote William Butler The Founder of Two Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  By His Daughter,  which was published in 1902.

Clementina moved to Providence, Rhode Island, in January of 1916 and soon embarked on missionary trips to Cuba, Panama, and Mexico for conferences and missionary work.

After Ramabi's death in 1922, Clementina, who was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Ramabi Association, wrote Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati; Pioneer in the Movement for the  Education of the Child-widow of India.

While living at 84 Sycamore Avenue in West Barrington, Rhode Island, in March of 1932, seventy-year-old Clementina took a trip to Bombay, India. 

In 1934, she traveled to Maryland to give talks about her work.  On April 13, The Midland Journal of Rising Sun, Maryland, discussed her recent talk at the Methodist Episcopal church.  Speaking about Clementina, it noted:  "Miss Butler is a forceful speaker and her extensive travel and knowledge of affairs enable her to give facts in an interesting manner.  Her recent work has been in Mexico."

Clementina's mother was one of the founders of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Boston's Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church in 1869. During the 1940s, Clementina paid for new windows at the church to honor the founders and the first two missionaries.

She passed away on December 5, 1949, and was buried near her parents in Newton Cemetery in Newton, Massachusetts.