Mae Eleanor Frey

Mae Eleanor Edick Frey (August 5, 1865 – December 4, 1954) was an American Pentecostal minister, leader, and writer. She was a social newspaper reporter when she was assigned to cover religious revival meetings; at one of these meetings, she met her future husband, evangelist P. I. Frey (they were married in 1887), and was converted to Christianity. She became an evangelist, working alongside her husband, and in 1905, became the first woman to be ordained in the Northern Baptist Convention (now the American Baptist Churches USA). Frey served as pastor and assistant pastor of congregations in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. She became a military chaplain and nurse late in World War I, doing volunteer hospital work with the Red Cross while maintaining her regular preaching duties. Despite success as a minister and evangelist, Frey's spiritual and vocational dissatisfaction brought her to a meeting at a Pentecostal church, where she was introduced to Pentecostalism, including the doctrine of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the practice of speaking in tongues, which "changed the trajectory of her life and ministry". The family moved to Pennsylvania before Edick was two years old; she was sickly for most of her childhood. The family had financial difficulties due to her father's drinking. He admitted later in life that he felt guilty for not caring for his family; he was "non-religious", which influenced her life and ministry and informed her work for the rest of her life.

In 1882, Edick decided, against her mother's wishes, to become a reporter, and quickly became a "rising star" Assemblies of God scholar Gerald W. King reported that her friends and family were "disappointed" about her conversion because "she gave up high society and focused her attention on evangelism". She attended a Bible college for two years and a Baptist seminary for three years. She also left her mainline church and worked in the City Mission, where she played the organ and "helped to lead souls to the altar".

Frey served as pastor and assistant pastor of congregations in New York and Pennsylvania, and was the pastor, with P. I. Frey, of Echo Lake Baptist Church in West Milford, New Jersey, from 1918 to 1920, receiving either equal or higher pay than male preachers, despite the conventions at the time and her growing dissatisfaction with her preaching and spiritual life. She became seriously ill with tuberculosis at the time of her ordination, continuing to preach despite severe symptoms and not being able to find treatment. Close to death due to a hemorrhage, a friend sent for George Davis, a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor, who prayed for her and anointed her with oil. She experienced instantaneous healing; she later reported that she was "completely and miraculously healed" and required no more medications for 18 years. Fulthorp said that the experience "changed the trajectory of her life and ministry". Frey's husband had a similar experience shortly afterwards, and after a year and a half, she resigned from her pastorate at Echo Lake Baptist Church. Frey joined the Assemblies of God (AG) Church and by the fall of 1920, she and P. I. Frey traveled across the U.S. and Canada as evangelists. Mae Frey sought ordination in the AG church, 14 years before it changed its bylaws and constitution to allow the ordination of women in 1935, and held evangelist credentials with the AG from 1921 until her death in 1954. Frey briefly was the editor of a monthly periodical called The Gospel Highway. King reported that in 1924, Frey was kidnapped' by the Ku Klux Klan and 'forced' to preach a sermon to their members". using narrative fiction and her own experiences as a female minister to teach Pentecostal doctrines, Frey intertwined her theology and beliefs into the book's plot and characters. In 1943, while pastoring Bethel Full Gospel Church in Rochester, New York, she published her second novel, Altars of Brick, with the established Christian publishing house Eerdmans. Like The Minister, Altars of Brick used narrative fiction to present the ethical and theological issues of her time, and to attack modernism.

Legacy

Mae Eleanor Frey, according to Fulthorp, "helped establish a place for women in leadership within Pentecostal and Baptist circles". Much like her contemporary Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Foursquare Church, she also "faced the challenges of a woman in ministry with tenacity". She wrote that she detested denominationalism and was torn between Pentecostal teachings about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the freedom she experienced when she conducted revivals for other denominations and as a Baptist minister.

In 1995, Pentecostal historian Edith Blumhofer compiled Frey's letters to AG leaders, written between 1924 and 1950; Blumhofer called them "revealing glimpses into various facets of American Pentecostalism" but also expressed her frustrations with the gender bias of her fellow ministers and revealed "wide disparities between doctrine and practice" for Pentecostal women in vocational ministry. Her letters also shaped the dialogue about the challenges women in religious leadership faced for decades and "inspired generations of men and women to put aside gender biases and diligently to do the divine work of God’s calling".

In 1924, the family had to settle in Glendale, California, due to P. I. Frey's failing health. Qualls stated that his death prevented "a dramatic showdown on the role of women in pastoral ministry" and allowed Frey to continue in the "less controversial work of evangelism".

Frey continued to minister and preach well into her 80s, even after her retirement in September 1950, contributing to a retired minister's fund that she was eligible to use. She preached for the last time at a revival in Huntington, New York, at the age of 89. She died in Stamford, Connecticut, on December 4, 1954.

Writings The Minister (1937). Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House. Altars of Brick (1943). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdsmans Publishing House. . "Selected Letters of Mae Eleanor Frey" (1995). Blumhofer, Edith L. (ed.). Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. 17 (1): 67–87.