Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Mrs. T. C. Doremus

Born in New York, but her parents moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey. She spent her early childhood in that city; in 1821 married a merchant of the city of New York, and returned there to live.

Though a communicant of the Reformed Dutch Church, she was a woman of broad religious ideas, and of strong and independent mind. She became an enthusiastic worker in the missionary field. Organizations were formed and had their meetings in her house. In those days there were no facilities for procuring ready made things to be sent out to the missionary fields, so she organized societies for making garments to be sent to those in the far ends of the earth. She did a great deal of work among the Greeks and Turks, also taking an interest in the missions on the frontier in Canada.

In 1859, the Woman's Union Missionary Society was formed, embracing all denominations of Christian women, and working independently of all boards, its direct object being an agency to send out teachers and missionaries to redeem the women of Persia and the East from the degradation in which our missionaries had found them.

She worked with untiring energy, giving her time, money and interest to the work, but though devoting her thought and time to this work, she never for one moment neglected her family. She did not allow her work to interfere with her duty to her family of nine children, to whom she was all that a mother could be.

Her death in January, 1877, caused widespread sorrow, not only to friends in this land but to the missionary fields all over the world. Her name has been perpetuated by the Woman's Union Missionary Society in Calcutta, India, by calling their home the Doremus Home.

Women of America

Source: The Part Taken by Women in American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.