Sunday, January 21, 2018

African-American deaconess honored at Episcopal church she founded in countryside north of Brunswick

From Georgia (via Florida)-

Speaking in the modest country church Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander founded in 1894, the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry said she lived the same “Why not” life as Christ during a service Saturday to celebrate her life.

The deaconess is buried in front of the original unpainted two-story Good Shepherd Episcopal Church she founded in the countryside on Pennick Road . It’s also where she founded a parochial school in the building in 1902 and began teaching children to read. In 1907, she was ordained the first African-American deaconess in the Episcopal Church.

She is buried directly in front of the church and school were a monument provides all her history except for her birth, said Anna Iredale, a publicist for the Episcopal Church.

“We say 1865, the year of emancipation,” on Butler Plantation where her parents were newly freed, Iredale said.


More here-

http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2018-01-20/african-american-deaconess-honored-episcopal-church-she-founded-countryside

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