CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORK.
Mrs. Bloomer was a zealous worker in the church of which she was a member, as well as in all efforts to promote the spread of true Christianity. While a resident of Seneca Falls, she contributed her full share to the various agencies employed to advance the interests of the parish. She was zealous and faithful in attending church services and all gatherings whether social or festive to advance church interests. Modest and retiring in demeanor, she took her place calmly and pleasantly wherever called upon to labor, and found her chief reward In the approval of a good conscience.
After her removal to her new home in the West, much additional labor came to her in the untrodden field in which her lot was cast. When she took up her residence in Council Bluffs, society was unorganized, without places of worship, and without any of the religious or moral agencies of older communities. We have seen in her personal memoirs how she was very soon called into the work before her. For two years none of the religious services to which she had been accustomed were held in the town, except that occasionally a bishop or minister made his way thither; when they came along, these always found a genuine welcome in her home. It is remembered that Bishops Kemper and Lee, and the Rev. Edward W. Peet, were among her guests during the first year of her residence. They all held religious services in the little Congregational church building which then stood on Main Street. At last a young missionary arrived and took up his residence, making his first home with Mrs. Bloomer in her modest dwelling under the bluff. And so it was in future years; whenever new clergymen of her denomination came to begin their work in town, they all uniformly found a home and resting place in her house until permanent quarters were secured. Clergymen, temperance lecturers, reformers of almost all kinds, among them advocates of woman’s enfranchisement, always found a welcome place at her table. On one occasion, being alone in the house during her husband’s absence, she was thrown into great trepidation at finding that her guest for the night (who had just come up from the bloody fields of Kansas) was armed both with bowie-knife and revolver; but the night passed in safety, for the owner of these appalling weapons was one of the noble men who periled their lives to win that state for freedom.
The building up of a new community was in those days attended with great labor and called for unflinching courage and steady perseverance. Churches had to be erected, school-houses built, libraries established and good works of all kinds encouraged. In all this Mrs. Bloomer did her full part. The support of the minister and the building of churches, especially, fell largely upon the women. They held festivals and collected money for these objects. They organized and maintained sewing societies and gave entertainments of various kinds for these objects. Mrs. Bloomer was among the active workers in this field. She was for many years secretary and treasurer of the Woman’s Aid Society in her parish, a society which contributed many thousands of dollars towards the erection of three successive churches and wholly built the rectory, as well as contributed largely in other ways towards the support of the parish. In 1880 she was president of the Art Loan-Exhibition given for the joint benefit of the city library and the church, one of the most successful efforts of the kind ever held in the city. On the parish register of her church under the date of 1856 her name stands as that of the first woman admitted to membership, and until within a few months of her decease, when she was prevented by bodily infirmities, she was a regular attendant upon the services. She was, however, no mere copyist, taking the words or teachings of others without thought or examination; but looked into all questions, theological, social or reformatory, for herself, and her clergymen will bear testimony to the many discussions they held with her on these and kindred subjects. One occasion her husband recalls: He came to his dinner at the usual hour, but found his wife and a visiting clergyman engaged in warm argument. They had been at it all the forenoon, the breakfast table standing as left in the morning and all preparations for dinner being forgotten. Of course, he enjoyed a good laugh at their expense.