Mary Twing

Serving from 1872 to 1876 as the first Secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary, Mary Twing, née Emery, remained active in The Episcopal Church until her death in 1901.

Mary Twing (1843-1901) was the eldest child in a large Massachusetts family, which included sister Julia Chester Emery. While her father was originally Unitarian and her mother a Congregationalist, the family joined The Episcopal Church when she reached the “years of discretion.” There is little information about Twing’s early life, but she first left home to become a teacher in Rockland, Maine.

In 1871, Twing left teaching to take the position of Secretary for the newly-formed Woman’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions. She remained in this role for four years, departing in 1876 to marry the Rev. Dr. Alvin Tabor Twing; however, during her short tenure she successfully brought many of the independent women’s organizations existing throughout the church under the umbrella of the Auxiliary. By allowing local groups to exercise operational independence with oversight following existing parish and diocesan lines of leadership, this approach proved so successful that the organizational structure remained unchanged even after her death.

After her husband’s death in 1883, Twing was named Honorary Secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary. It was in this capacity that she visited missionaries around the world and across the United States. She wrote travel columns for various publications about her experiences, which she later gathered into a book entitled Twice Around the World. She was also deeply engaged in the establishment of qualifications for and the training of deaconesses, providing an comprehensive treatise on the topic in her 1898-1901 triennial report “On the Training and Systematized Service of Women in the Work of the Church.”

In 1901, Twing journeyed once more to San Francisco for the Triennial Meeting during General Convention, where she passed away on October 14, at the age of 58.