Women of distinction/Chapter 56
CHAPTER LVI.
MRS. GEORGIE COLLEY.
Mrs. Georgie Colley was born at Portsmouth, Norfolk county, Va., October 25, 1858; is the older of two daughters,
MRS. GEORGIE COLLEY.
the only children of her mother. She was educated under missionary teachers from the North, all of whom were ladies. Chief among them was Miss Julia M. Bartlett, at one time a teacher in the Wayland Seminary, Washington, D. C., and afterward the principal of the Colored Orphan Asyhim of the same city.
Mrs. Colley was very carefully reared and trained by a faithful Christian mother, who spared no pains nor means to rear this child to be an honor to the home and community, and to be a faithful worker for God when converted.
She was converted at the age of eighteen, under the ministry of Rev. E. G. Corprew, who baptized her into the Zion Baptist Church, Portsmouth, Va., first Lord's day in December, 1876. Mrs. Colley grew up in the Sunday-school of Zion Baptist Church, and became a teacher in that school at the age of fourteen years; was elected teacher of the most advanced class of young women in the school; was also elected assistant superintendent of the same school, which position she held for one year.
Before the organization of the Virginia Baptist State Sunday-school Convention, while the work of Sunday-schools was reported to the State Convention of Churches, Mrs. Colley then, from twelve to fourteen years of age, competed for prizes in the conventions, winning the second prize in the convention at Lynchburg, Va., and the first prize in the convention at Danville, Va., for the greatest number of scriptural verses, repeated from memory, with the fewest mistakes, before "judges" apppointed by the Baptist State Convention. The first prize was won at Danville, Va., when she repeated the 119th Psalm without making a single mistake, several of the judges on this occasion being of the white Baptist ministers. Rev. Henry Williams, Jr., now pastor of the Giffield Baptist Church, Petersburg, Va., presented the medal.
IIrs. Colley, before she was married, taught public schools, holding good certificates from the County Superintendents, teaching five years in Norfolk and Nansemond counties, Va.
APPOINTED MISSIONARY TO AFRICA.
"Miss Georgie" became Mrs. W. W. Colley, by marriage, November i, 1883, in the Zion Baptist Church, Portsmouth, Va. , Rev. C. H. Corey, D. D., President of the Richmond Theological Seminary, officiating, assisted by the pastor. Rev. J. M. Armistead. A large number of ministers were present and took part in this solemn service.
The Foreign Mission Convention of the United States had a few weeks before this closed its meeting in the First Baptist Church, Manchester, Va., where it was voted that Rev. W. W. Colley, the founder of the Colored Baptist Foreign Mission Convention in America, and their mission work in Africa, might take unto himself a wife and be ready to leave for Central Africa, in company with other missionaries, to open the Colored Baptist Mission in the "Vye" country.
The subject of this sketch had been duly consulted on the question of becoming a wife and a missionary.
Dr. S. H. Dismond and Mr. J. B. Cable were chosen as first and second "best men," and in thirty days from marriage she was on the Atlantic Ocean sailing as missionary to Central Africa, under the Baptist Foreign Mission Board of the above convention.
Their union has been blessed with four children, two of whom were born in Africa.
Mrs. Colley stood the climate of Africa better than any of the six missionaries who went out with her.
One writer has said that "A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect, but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies rather than by her knowledge." She enjoyed her work among the heathen and they were devoted to her.
Much might be said in this sketch that would make friends for African missions, but space will not permit. The work of the missionary's wife and the unmarried woman, as teacher, not only of the Bible, but ever-thing that comes in the line of woman's work, makes woman's presence in all heathen lands, as a missionary, as indispensable as that of the minister of the Gospel.