The woman who gathered others to the work
“The gift of consecrated and dynamic leadership was given to Mrs. Parson to a remarkable degree.” —Mrs. E. Gordon Blackadar, 1941
In 1889, as Lizzie Parson travelled by horse and buggy through the Ottawa Valley, she noticed an abandoned Baptist church in Beckwith, Ontario. The building had fallen into such disuse that it was being used as a sheep pen. Lizzie resolved then and there to reclaim it.
When she learned the Baptist Home Mission Board had no funds for the project, she turned to the women of the church. On November 14, 1889, eleven young women gathered around a small heater in the basement of First Baptist Church, Ottawa. Lizzie’s mother chaired the meeting and invited each woman to pray for God’s guidance. Some had never prayed aloud before, but “with tears in their eyes and trembling voices,” they asked for God’s blessing—and it came.
That evening marked the beginning of the Women’s Baptist Home Missionary Society of Eastern Ontario and Quebec.
As corresponding secretary for the next 26 years, Lizzie became a driving force behind the movement. She urged women to pray, give, and work for mission both at home and abroad. Their first project—the Beckwith church—was repaired, reopened, and soon thriving, with a summer student pastor and new believers being baptized.
Lizzie’s final vision focused on Ottawa’s growing Slavic community. In 1916, Baptist women quickly organized a mission to serve these new Canadians. Within a year, they established the Parson Memorial Fund and built a permanent mission—continuing the work Lizzie had begun.
Her legacy lives on wherever women gather, pray, and act in faith together.