Deaconess Harriet Bedell left an indelible mark on Southwest Florida history. Today marks 57 years since she passed away on Jan. 8, 1969, in Davenport, Florida. She is honored as a saint in the Episcopal Church, with her feast day observed on this date.
So, it felt appropriate to take a closer look at the life of this legend.
Bedell was born on March 19, 1875, in Buffalo, New York, to a prominent family (her uncle was a hotelier). She initially trained as a teacher, graduating from the State Normal School in 1894, and taught in public schools for several years.
After being inspired by missionary preaching in 1906, she enrolled in the New York Training School for Deaconesses, where she studied theology, hygiene and nursing.
She eventually became an Episcopal missionary who worked with Native Americans in Oklahoma (1907 until 1916) and Alaska (1916 until 1931) before coming to Everglades City in 1932 to establish the Glades Cross Mission, as well as a mission on Marco Island and Goodland.
Here, Bedell worked with the Seminole and Mikasuki (Miccosukee) peoples, where she was known as Inkoshopie (“Woman who prays”).
Bedell convinced the Episcopal Church Service League to give her $50 a month for her mission and rented a house for $20 a month from the Collier Corp. in Everglades City. That new home became Glade Cross Mission.
“But the Indians did not come,” writes Katherine Albers in an April 2, 2012, article in the Naples Daily News. “In fact, it would take almost three years for Bedell to win the acceptance of a few Indians. But once she made headway, the mission began showing results.”
“Nobody stopped the Deaconess,” Doris Reynolds, historian, told Albers for the article. “Those Indians became Christian or felt her wrath. She was the bossiest woman God ever created.”
In addition to missionary duties, Bedell would hold five church services a week, including ones at Marco Island, Caxambas and Goodland; she would visit families and the sick; and she would sell the handicrafts made by the Seminoles to tourists and the townspeople, turning the proceeds over to the Indians.
Bedell also convinced a benefactor in Washington, D.C., to donate a $300 Model A Ford, which she would drive around the county.
“I always knew the Deaconess was coming before she arrived,” said Reynolds.
“People would come into the chamber and say, I was just behind some crazy woman who was driving 18 miles an hour on the Tamiami Trail.”
Hurricane Donna, which blew through when Bedell was 85, destroyed the Glades Cross Mission and the Goodland Mission House. Bedell, who evacuated to Ochopee during the 1960 storm, survived and, although she was willing to start over, the church urged her to retire.
Although Bedell would leave the area to live at the Bishop Gray Inn in Davenport, she did not stop working, caring for the sick and lecturing until her death in 1969 at age 94.
Sources: Naples Daily News archives, newspapers.com, the Seminole Tribe and Wikipedia.
This article originally appeared on Marco Eagle: Deaconess Harriet Bedell: Honoring a local saint on her Feast Day
Reporting by Staff, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Marco Eagle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
