Mabel Madeline Southard was born on July 29, 1877, in Rock, Kansas, the second daughter of James and Madeline (Rogers) Southard. The family was living in Michigan, but James died before Mabel Madeline was born. Madeline and older daughter Stella (b.1871) went to live with her mother Almira (Santee) Rogers in Rock, Kansas. In August of 1893, Madeline (Rogers) Southard died, leaving Stella and Mabel Madeline with their grandmother. She attended Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas (AB 1899) and Northwestern University (MA 1919), and was the founder of the American Association of Women Ministers (1919). Ordained in the Methodist Church in 1925, she had pastorates in Colorado, Montana, and Kansas, and preached throughout the United States, in the Philippines (1928, 1930, 1947-1948), and India (1931-1932, 1947-1948). She was a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Church (1920, 1924) and worked tirelessly to secure equal rights for women within the church. From 1925 to 1927 Southard was head of the history department at Taylor University in Indiana. A national field worker for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Southard was president of the International Woman-Preachers' Association, and editor of the Woman's Pulpit, the journal of the American Association of Women Ministers. Southard was also the author of The White Slave Traffic versus the American Home (1914), The Attitude of Jesus toward Women (1927), and The Christian Message on Sex (1931). Southard died on September 19, 1967 in Topeka, Kansas.
Friend and distant cousin of Southard, Carol Lynn (Gilmer) Yellin was born on March 3, 1920, in Clinton, Oklahoma, to Thomas and Eulala (Rogers) Gilmer. In 1945, Yellin served with the Red Cross during World War II. Later she was an associate editor for Reader's Digest, and co-produced the television show Face to Face with her second husband David Yellin. Together they won the 1988 Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Award for their work during the 1968 sanitation strike in Memphis, Tennessee. Carol Yellin died in March of 1999.
From the guide to the Papers of M. Madeline (Mabel Madeline) Southard, ca.1878-1998, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
