Nationality Wales Role Evangelist Ethnicity Welsh & Cornish Resting place Watertown | Religion ChristianBaptist Children Joseph E. Davies Name Rachel Davies | |
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Full Name Rachel Evans Paynter Spouse(s) Edward Davies (Born Tregaron, Wales 18 April 1830 - died 17 January 1888 buried in the Llanidan Church Yard, Brynsiencyn, Anglesey, Wales) Similar People Joseph E Davies, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Eleanor Post Hutton, Dina Merrill, C W Post | ||
Rachel Davies ("Rahel o Fôn") (1846–1915) was a Welsh-born lecturer and evangelist preacher who emigrated to the USA. She was the first woman minister ordained in the state of Wisconsin. Rahel o Fôn is the Welsh Bardic name for “Rachel of Anglesey”.
Contents
She started preaching with the Baptists at the age of 20. She was later invited on a preaching tour of the United States and when living in Ixonia she joined the Calvinistic Methodists. While in Wisconsin, she met and married Edward Davies, a prosperous wagon maker who had emigrated to Watertown, Wisconsin from Tregaron, Wales. After her husband died she was ordained a minister, at the age of 44, and carried on preaching all her life.
She returned to Wales for a period and lived at her sister's home Cefn Derwen, Anglesey across from Caernarfon Castle. At one time she gave some assistance to David Lloyd George in his electoral campaign.
She died 29 November 1915 in Washington, DC at her son's home and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Watertown, Wisconsin. A 50 ft stained glass window given in her memory by her son, Joseph E. Davies, can be seen at the Washington National Cathedral.
Culture
A theatrical play about her life, Rahel o Fôn. was written by Emily Sprague Wurl. Although quite banal, it is informative, and won First Prize in the Wisconsin Centennial Playwriting Contest, 1948.
Family
She was the daughter of William Cox Paynter, and his wife Jane Mary Williams of Llanfihangel-y-pennant, Caerns. She married in the U.S.A. to Edward Davies, a native of Cardiganshire. Her son, Joseph Edward Davies, was the second Ambassador to represent the United States in the Soviet Union as well as the US Ambassador to Belgium before World War II.