Rev. Experience "Perie" Burdick

Rev Experience "Perie" Fitz Randolph Burdick

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=31391701

see pedigree at

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/af/pedigree_view.asp?recid=3...

"Baptists in America" By Bill J. Leonard

Columbia University Press, Published 2005

http://books.google.com/books?id=MVwsalV1tloC

During the nineteenth century, Seventh Day Baptist women were appointed to the mission field and ordained to pastoral ministery. Perie Burdick (later known as Experience Randolph) was ordained in 1885 and was the first woman to engage in pastoral ministry in the denomination [Seventh Day Baptists]. (p. 98)

[odd that the text says "later" when her unmarried name was Randolph and she became Mrs. Burdick when she married.]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NXG/is_3_40/ai_n15922480/pg_1

Chosen by God: women pastors on the frontiers of the seventh day baptist denomination: by Patricia A. Bancroft

"Baptist History and Heritage" Summer-Fall 2005

She Could Not Keep Silent

Experience Fitz Randolph Burdick, born in 1852 to Seventh Day Baptist parents, grew up in the deep woods of Berie County, West Virginia. Even as child, she felt God's call to preach the gospel but felt dread about her calling because she was not a boy. In later years she wrote:

  "No church influences helped me to decide the vital question, for

my home church, during my girlhood and early womanhood, was
in West Virginia, where the people felt that "women as pastors do
not succeed, and it is not wise to encourage young women to
prepare themselves for the ministry." The church of which I was a
member fek yet more strongly and believed "it would be wicked for
a woman to try to preach." For over 25 years my longing to enter
the ministry was a profound secret between myself and God." (9)
In 1882, when she was thirty-two-years old, this highly respected teacher finally announced her calling as a minister, and she began to preach in public. She obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Alfred Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1885. A biographer wrote that, at the time of Burdick's unexpected death in 1906: "Records show that she has conducted fifty weddings, ninety funerals, and ten years ago had preached eight hundred and ninety sermons.... At the time of her death she was pastor of the Seventh-day Baptist church at New Auburn, Wisconsin, where her work was very efficient and greatly appreciated by all who came under her influence." (10)

Like so many female pastors throughout the ages, Burdick, or Reverend Perie as she was affectionally called, was a wife, a mother, and a tireless servant of God. Fulfilling these three roles was significant, but there is little doubt that her commitment to her Lord and Savior was her spiritual priority, and fulfilling her calling came at great cost. In a handwritten letter dated December 10, 1904, and sent from New Auburn, Wisconsin, Burdick wrote to her husband and daughter back in New Auburn, Minnesota:

"My Dear Ones at Home, How are you this evening? I wish I could just get a hold of you both." She then expressed her love for her daughter, Genevieve, who was celebrating her twelfth birthday that day. Burdick also wrote about her health and noted that she suffered from severe headaches. She concluded the letter with these poignant words: "I wish I was coming home this week. To me there is no place like home. I do hope Leon you won't be running around the country after night. Do be careful in the woods. Genevieve, be very careful and don't take cold. Pray for me. Write often and much. Your loving Wife and Mother, Perle R. Burdick." (11)

At the time she wrote this letter, Burdick was attending to her people in her church in Wisconsin, while her husband, also a pastor, was with his congregation in Minnesota. Like most Decembers in the northern United States, the weather was bitterly cold, and Burdick struggled emotionally because she was over 150 miles away from her family. The wife and mother parts of her ached with loneliness and concern; the servant and saint part of her managed to stay strong as she focused on her work. She was obeying her God, even if it meant that she had to be separated from her family, travel about in a horse and carriage through deep and heavy snows, pastor an isolated church and congregation, and be painfully lonely in the process. She had said yes to God and she had meant it with all of her body, mind, soul, and spirit.

(9.) Experience Fitz Randolph Burdick, "How Preachers Are Developed," Sabbath Recorder 62, no. 51 (December 17, 1906): 803.

(10.) A. H. Lewis, "Rev. Perle R. Burdick," Sabbath Recorder 62, no. 50 (December 10, 1906): 793.

(11.) Experience Fitz Randolph Burdick, letter to husband Leon and daughter Genevieve Burdick, December 10, 1904, Seventh Day Baptist Historical Research Library, Janesville, WI.

http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/ritchie/history/hr...

"History of Ritchie County" written by Minnie Kendall Lowther, and published in 1910.

CHAPTER LI

The Younger Men's Calender

Experience Randolph. -- Though entirely foreign to the original idea and plan

of this department, it only seems fitting and just that the name of one of

the many worthy daughters of Ritchie should have a place in this corner; and

for this place we choose the name of "Experience Randolph."

Miss Randolph ("Perie," as she familiarly known) was born near the little

town of Berea, on July 10, 1852; and here (with the exception of two or

three years) amidst the forest, surrounded by the many dis-advantages of a

defective educational system, the days of her childhood and early youth were

sspent in a quiet, uneventful way. But she had the "heritage of a noble

heart," a brilliant mind, and a deeply religious character, and despite the

dis-advantages of her environments, she diligently applied herself to her

studies, and, at the early age of sixteen years, entered the profession of

teaching.

Her first school was taught near what is now the little hamlet of Lawford,

during the winter of 1868-9, shortly after the inauguration of the Free

School system; and being inspired

Page 631

with a zeal for a college education, she soon began to lay her plans to this

effect; and in 1874, accompanied by her sister, who is now Mrs. Callie

Meathrell, of Berea, she set out for Alfred University, New York, and five

years later, came out of this institution with the A.B. degree. She paid

her way through college, however, by teaching in the meantime.

Immediately after her graduatin, she accepted a position as teacher in the

public school at Alfred, but being compelled to resign by the illness of her

father, which called her home, she again engaged in educational work in her

native state; and while thus engaged began to give serious consideration to

what her chosen life-work should be. And for a time, she seemed inclined to

the medical profession, but after entering upon a course of reading as a

preliminary to matriculation at a medical college, she was not wholly

satisfied, and finallly decided to enter the ministry, (1882); and a little

later, she entered the Alfred University as a Theological student, after

first being assured that no discrimination should be made against her on the

account of her sex. Here she found herself the one female member of the

class, and the only distinction that was made, was brought about by her own

will; and that was her refusal to accept a share in the funds from the

Missionary Board and other sources that had been set apart for the support

of young men, who were preparing themselves for the ministry. As women had

not been included in the terms of this gift, she felt that she should not

accept a share of it, preferring to defray her won expenses; and her class-

mates, in recognition of the honest motive which prompted this refusal,

presented her with a valuable collection of books for her library, on one

occasion. She finished her course, however, and received the degree of B.D.,

her grade of work being as efficient, at least, as the average-a fact which

her class-mates were willing to admit. Though naturally her opportunities

to preach or to engage in other ministerial work during her collegiate

course, were very much limited as it was a "marked departure from the custom

of the period" for a woman to enter the ministry, and the predudice and the

antagonism must be confronted.

Page 632 And she had some mis-givings concerning her own home church at

Berea, as to the attitude it might assume toward her chosen work, but this

burden was soon removed by an action of the official members of this church,

on July 7, 1883, which took the form of the following resolution:

"Whereas, It has come to our hearing that Sister Experience Randolph has

decided to prepare herself for the ministry, therefore,

"Resolved, That we most heartily approve of her decision, and that we

promise her our sympathy, and our prayers."

During the vacation of the summer of 1884, she spent the greater part of her

time between the Lincklaen and Ostelic churches near DeRuyter, New York, and

the following winter, she became pastor of the church at Hornersville, that

state; and before the close of her academic year, she had accepted the

pastorate of the two churches that she had first served. And at the

expiration of her college course, she was ordained at Hornellsville, by a

council called for that purpose, the Rev. Wardner C. Titworth, pastor of the

first church at Alfred conduction the examination before the Council.

Owing to the general opposition to women ministers, some of her friends had

suggested the Missions fields of China as a place for her labors, but, as

her inclinations did not lead her in this direction, she gave the subject no

farther consideration.

At the end of her first two years as pastor of the churches, Lincklaen and

Ostelic, she was married to Leon D. Burdick, one of her parishoners, who was

preparing himself for the ministerial work, and her whole energies were then

concentrated in her husband's labors, and during his College and Theological

training, at Alfred, as well as his subsequent career, as teacher, and as

pastor (at Georgetown, New York; Marlboro, New Jersey; Verona, New York; and

New Auburn, Minnesota), her every endeavor seemed to be to uphold and to

strengthen the cause that he espoused.

On Thanksgiving Day (November 29), 1906, after a brief illness at her home,

at New Auburn, Minnesota, she passed to her reward leaving her husband and

one daughter, Genevieve C. Burdick. Thus one of this county's most distinguished daughters passed away. But the incense of the life of love that she shed uponm all that came within her influence can never lose its fragrance. It must ever live as a

precious memory.