“After the meeting of the American Board in Minneapolis, in October, 1873, Miss Elizabeth Bishop of Northfield, Minn., entered the Dakota work.
“Two years later, at the next western meeting of the society, and during the session of the Woman’s Board of Missions, her death was announced. Of the intervening twelve months twice told, it falls to my lot to speak, and I attempt the task with mingled feelings, for I know it is impossible to do justice to the beauty of Lizzie’s character.
“Young, delicate, already suffering with a disease which made her to be over-fastidious in some things, sensitive to the discomforts of frontier life, and inexperienced in its ways of living, she came into the mission work.
“These hindrances were met and more than overbalanced by her singleness of purpose, her even temper, her devotion to her chosen labor, and her unwavering trust in Jesus.
“The first winter of her stay at Hope Station, on the bank of the Missouri River, opposite Fort Sully, was a winter of trial and of danger. Indians had threatened to burn the mission house. Hostile ones crowded about the place, the camps were noisy with singing and dancing in preparation for war-parties, and once a shot was fired into the house.
“None of these things disturbed Lizzie. ‘I do not choose to be killed by the Indians,’ she said, ‘but if the Lord wills it so, it is all right.’ And she went on as usual with her housework and her sewing-school, and the care of the two Indian boys who were taken into the family in the spring. While she taught the sewing-class, several little girls, some six or eight, made dresses of linsey-woolsey for themselves; and then, under Miss Bishop’s supervision, combed their hair, bathed, and put on clean clothes. She also instructed several women in some branches of housework, and was always looking for the opportunity of doing good.
“Very early in the winter she had a slight hemorrhage from the lungs, which was followed by others more severe at intervals through the summer. But she still kept up.
“In the fall, after the removal to another mission station, her health gave way, and she was obliged to go to the fort to rest and recuperate. After her return she was able to resume only a part of her former work; but she carried on, with great enthusiasm, the morning school for children, and aided somewhat in the sewing-school.
“Although, as the spring advanced, her health failed more and more, yet her courage would not give way, and she never but once expressed the opinion that she should not recover. Her plan had been to spend this second summer in her own home, though sometimes she was almost ready to stay on and work for ‘my boys,’ as she called them.
“Finally, she concluded to go to Minnesota for the summer, but made every arrangement to return to the mission in the fall. After some hesitation because of her delicate health, she decided to make the journey with our mission party overland, down the country. So she took the trip, enjoyed every day, and declared she felt better and slept better every night.
“The party camped out over the Sabbath, and on Monday evening, the seventh day after leaving Fort Sully, arrived at the Yankton agency. Here, at the mission home of our friend J. P. Williamson, the welcome was so warm, and the companionship so pleasant, that Miss Bishop desired to spend a few days longer than she had intended. She wanted to visit the schools, and learn both here and at Santee agency something to help her when she should go back to teach the Indian children on the Upper Missouri. So she stayed behind, full of hope and zeal. But her friends parted from her with foreboding in their hearts. In a few days she was again attacked with her old trouble; she rallied so as to get to her home, and to be again with her mother and sister. But she sank rapidly, and, after some weeks of severe suffering, she entered into rest.
“Writing of her, her sister said: ‘Her favorite motto was, “Simply to thy cross I cling.” She trusted in Christ because he has promised to save all who come to him. She enjoyed hearing us sing to the last such hymns as, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” “My Faith Looks up to Thee,” “Father, Whate’er of Earthly Bliss,” “How Firm a Foundation,” and others.’
“Resting on Him who is able to save, she passed away.
“The work she loved, and so conscientiously carried on, has fallen to other hands, but is not finished nor lost; and in the homes she helped to make happy she is missed, yet her memory is an abiding presence, cheering and encouraging.
“‘And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.’[8]”
[8] Mention should be made here of Rev. Samuel Ingham and his wife, who joined the missionary force at Santee immediately after the meeting of the Board at Minneapolis. Mr. Ingham was suffering at the time from what was considered a temporary malady, but which proved serious and ended his life Dec. 27, 1873. Mrs. Ingham continued in her work in the “Dakota Home,” the new school for girls.
The commencement of the Manual Labor Boarding-School on the Sisseton reserve was an event which indicated progress. Agent M. N. Adams had received authority from the department to erect a suitable building. On the 4th of September, 1873, the foundation walls were so far completed that the corner-stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies. There was quite a gathering of the natives and white people on the reservation. After prayer in Dakota by Pastor Solomon, Mr. Adams made a speech, which was interpreted, setting forth the advantages that would accrue to this people from such a school as this building contemplated. He then announced that he had in his hands copies of the Bible in Dakota and English, and a Dakota hymn book, together with eight numbers of the Iapi Oaye, a copy of the St. Paul Press, and a Yankton paper, and also sundry documents, all of which he deposited in the place prepared for them. I added a few remarks, and then the corner-stone was laid and pronounced level. Speeches followed from Solomon, John B., and Daniel Renville, pastors; and from Robert Hopkins, Two Stars, and Gabriel Renville. They accepted this as the guarantee of progress in the new era on which they had entered.
That autumn the boarding-school was commenced. As only a part of the building could be made habitable for the winter, the girls alone were placed there, under the care and teaching of Mr. and Mrs. Armor. Mr. and Mrs. Morris took the boys and cared for them, in very close quarters, at the mission, only a little way off. In the summer of 1874 there appeared in the Word Carrier articles on “Our Girls,” and “Our Boys,” written by Mrs. Armor and Mrs. Morris, respectively. In each department they had about sixteen. Mrs. Armor classed her scholars as large girls, little girls, and very little girls. That first year was a good beginning of the school.
Mrs. Morris was willing to undertake the hard work these sixteen boys imposed upon her, because she had just met with a great sorrow. She had gone on East with two children, and came back with only one. “As I sit and mend,” she writes, “the alarming holes which the boys make in their clothes, an unbidden tear sometimes falls when I think of our blue-eyed, sunny-haired boy, whose last resting-place is in the valley of the Susquehanna. And I think how much rather I would have worked for him than for these boys. But I say to myself, ‘My darling is safe and out of reach of harm’; and these boys need the doing for that my darling one will never need more. For
“’ Mine in God’s garden runs to and fro,
And that is best.’
And I know that somehow the Lord knows what is best; and he does as he will with his own.”
In the early spring of 1874, I was requested jointly by the American Board and the American Missionary Association to visit and report upon various Indians agencies, where their appointees, or nominees rather, were agents. Accordingly, I started in the month of May, by St. Paul, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, to Bismarck, and thence by steamboat up the Missouri to Fort Berthold. At this time Major L. B. Sperry, who had been a professor in Ripon College, was the nominee of the American Missionary Association. It was not my good fortune to find Agent Sperry at home, but Mrs. Sperry, in a very ladylike way, gave me the best accommodations during the week I remained.
Here were gathered the remnant of the Mandans, only a few hundred persons, and the Rees, or Arricarees, a part of the Pawnee tribe, and the Gros Ventres, or Minnetaree, properly the Hidatsa. Altogether they numbered about two thousand souls. We had before this entertained the desire that we might be able to establish a mission among these people, and this thought or hope gave interest to my visit. The Mandan and the Hidatsa languages were both pretty closely connected with the Dakota; but what seemed to bring these nearer to us was the fact that many of all these people could understand and talk the Dakota, that forming a kind of common language for them.