Mildred Isabel PARKER

PARKER, Mildred Isabel (1890-1954), Presbyterian Deaconess

Mildred Isabel Parker (nee Robertson) was born in 1890 at Penrith, NSW, to George Anderson Robertson and Elizabeth nee Cook. George was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and came to Australia about 1884 while Elizabeth was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1856 to James and Isabella Cook. George and Elizabeth were married in Newcastle in 1884 and shortly afterwards moved to Windsor where George commenced a business as a builder, contractor and monumental mason which he was to carry on for 30 years. Just four years later in 1888, he opened a branch of the business in Penrith and this is where Mildred was born. Her older sister Annie was born in 1886 and her younger brother Francis was born in 1893.

George was crippled with rheumatism which made working difficult, but while he could he continued to do so. He produced various monumental works in the district and several buildings including “Glasgow House” 394 George Street Windsor, a house and shop near the railway in which the family lived. From 1896, Mrs Robertson conducted a business from the shop selling clothing and shoes¹ and by 1902 groceries and produce were also being sold. ² George’s stonemason yard was conveniently located in the yard at the rear of the store and was leased to others after he ceased working, with the store being closed sometime after 1921. ³ Mildred’s father died in 1918 and his funeral was attended by a large contingent of the Independent Order of Oddfellows Prince of Wales Lodge of which George had been a member. ⁴ Her father was a senior elder of the Windsor Presbyterian Church and her parents were both devoted members, ⁵so much so that in 1927 the congregation recognised their contribution by erecting a marble tablet in their memory. ⁶

Mildred lived at home in Windsor and worked as a legal clerk until the death of her mother in 1927. ⁷ It was this work which gave her ‘especially in divorce cases … an insight into human nature.’ ⁸ In 1928, at the age of 38, she married the widowed Joseph Henry Parker, a builder from Woollahra. Joseph was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire to Isaac and Ellen Parker and was the oldest of three children. While he said he was a widower ⁹ Joseph had actually been divorced from his first wife, Alice Mary nee Stopard, in Sydney in 1926. ¹⁰ Married in Sheffield, England, in 1905, Joseph had divorced his wife on the grounds of ‘habitual drunkenness and neglect of domestic duties’. ¹¹ Mildred’s marriage was only to be for eight years as Joseph became ill and was unable to work, leaving Mildred to work part-time in her deaconess work and nurse him until his death in 1936.

It was in 1931 that Mildred commenced her work as a deaconess for the ‘Institutional Church Scheme’ which was to be the forerunner of the Presbyterian Social Services. She served first in the Glebe, Ultimo- Pyrmont, and Balmain charges and assisted in work at Erskineville. ¹² While working she took the opportunity to inform the ladies of the Presbyterian Institutional Church Dorcas Society about the conditions she observed:

Two roomed cottages in which six or seven people lived, and for which they paid eight or nine shillings a week. In these heart-breaking conditions it was impossible, she said, for people to bring up their children to be decent citizens. Malnutrition was weakening the stamina of the children, whose powers of resistance to illness were very little. The food relief they received just made existence possible, but if it were not supplemented by charitable organisations, the hospitals would be more crowded than they are. ¹³

In 1940, almost a decade later, Mildred was working in the coalfields area based at Cessnock ¹⁴with the Rev Joseph Faulkner who was later to become the Superintendent of Metropolitan Missions and Social Services. ¹⁵ It was also in this year that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, ¹⁶ but she continued her work despite this difficulty. Of her ministry it was said that she had

Displayed an enthusiasm for her work and had made it her duty to be a friend to those to whom she can be of assistance, and wherever she had been her influence has been felt and has been left in the lives of many. ¹⁷

Her task in the coalfields was to

Devote her time to ministering unto the poor and needy, uplifting the fallen, guiding the destinies of the young, alleviating human suffering and bringing a very wide knowledge of human experience to bear on the problems of the perplexed. ¹⁸

Around 1941, Mildred then returned to Sydney to supervise the training of deaconesses in the manse at Ultimo. While doing this she also worked to reduce and finally remove the debt on the St Andrew’s Boys Home at Manly which had been commenced in 1943. This task completed, she undertook work at Redfern in 1948 which she continued until entering hospital on 12 January 1954. She died just three months later on the 19th of April. ¹⁹

In an address to the Uniting Church Historical Society the Rev Harry Herbert comments that

The work of a deaconess was a combination of evangelism and social welfare. In the Presbyterian Church responsibility for the Mildred Parker College for training deaconesses lay with the Department of Social Services. For a range of reasons, some practical and some theological, the work centred on providing social and welfare services rather than on evangelism. ²⁰

It would seem that this was also true of the work of Mildred Parker. What commentary there is on her work emphasises her role in social welfare, but is silent on any word-based ministry encouraging people to repent of their sin and seek the forgiveness of God through the cross of Jesus. It was said that in the face of her great personal suffering she was uncomplaining, ‘having outstanding gifts, and her remarkably Christ-like patience in bearing her own severe physical pain helped others in the way of the Cross’, and she was described as one who had ‘wisdom and spiritual depth rarely encountered’. ²¹ During her last days, when others would commend her for her courage, ‘she would rather say it was her faith alone.’ ²²

In his history of the NSW Presbyterian Church published in 1950 four years before Mildred’s death, CA White, who knew Mildred’s parents well and Mildred as a child, mentions her once and then only in passing. When the Presbyterian Church in NSW sought to establish a training College for Deaconesses after her death, however, it was Mildred’s name that was promoted and used to challenge the church to give the necessary money. The adoption of her name for the College, opened in 1961, was seen as a fulfilment of her desire to see ‘a proper Deaconess Training College established’ and as a ‘fitting tribute to one who gave unstintingly to her Church of her love and service through 23 long and difficult years, for 14 of which she suffered uncomplainingly.’ ²³ It was clear that it was not just what Mildred did that impressed others, but also the serenity she showed in the face of the health challenges she experienced. In this tribute, the Presbyterian Church in NSW celebrated that she ‘touched with a gracious influence all who were privileged to have known her’ and it thanked ‘God for her life of service for the Church’ for such a ‘wise and trusted fellow –labourer in the harvest-field’. ²⁴

Paul F Cooper

2014

Notes

1. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, October 24, 1896.

2. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, February 15, 1902.

3. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, December 23, 1921.

4. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, August 9, 1918.

5. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder, July 2, 1940.

6. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, October 28, 1927.

7. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, July 1, 1927.

8. Deaconess Brochure, Mildred Parker file, Ferguson Library.

9. NSW Marriage Certificate Transcription 1928/5780, Mildred Parker file, Ferguson Library.

10. SMH, April 14, 1926.

11. SMH, September 22, 1925.

12. SMH, July 14, 1937

13. SMH, July 17, 1934.

14. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder, July 2, 1940.

15 Faulkner was at Cessnock from 1938-42 and served as Superintendent from 1942-48.

16. Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners’ Advocate, November 6, 1940.

17. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder, July 2, 1940.

18. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder, July 2, 1940.

19. Mildred Parker file, Ferguson Library.

20. Herbert, Harry (Rev), Address to Uniting Church Historical Society, UnitingCare NSW/ACT, n.d. [2011], http://www.unitingcarenswact.org.au/advocacy/executive_directors_comments//?a=65919. [accessed December 1, 2013]

21. The NSW Presbyterian, September 23, 1955.

22. The NSW Presbyterian, May 2, 1954.

23. Deaconess Brochure, Mildred Parker file, Ferguson Library.

24. The NSW Presbyterian, May 2, 1954.