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 Julia Emery is a
1994 addition to the Episcopal Calendar.
Her father was a New England sea captain. Two of her brothers became
priests. One sister, Helen, cared for another sister who was ill, and made a
project of providing hospitality in her New York City home for missionaries
on leave. Another sister, Mary, was National Secretary of the Women's
Auxiliary of the Board of Missions for its first four years, from 1872 to
1876. At this point, Julia took over, and was National Secretary of the
Auxiliary for forty years, from 1876 to 1916.
She visited every diocese in the United States, coordinating and encouraging
work in support of missions. She traveled to London for as a delegate to the
Pan-Anglican Congress. She traveled to Japan, inland China, Hong Kong, and
the Philippines to advance missionary work there, and to be able to report
on it to the Episcopal women in the United States.
It was Julia who invented the United Thank Offering (UTO). This works (or
used to work -- my political instincts tell me that not everyone today would
be comfortable with the original arrangement) by giving each woman a small
box with a slit in the top (a cardboard piggy bank), and encouraging her to
drop a small contribution into it whenever she feels thankful about
something. Once a year, the women of the parish present these at the Sunday
service, and the money is sent to national headquarters to be used for
missions.
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