wfn.org | Hutchinson Still Champions Justice at 103

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
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Note 478 by UMNS on Nov. 26, 1997 at 16:02 Eastern (5803 characters).

CONTACT:	Thomas S. McAnally					 666(10-23-71B){478}
		Nashville, Tenn.  (615) 742-5470			  Nov. 26, 1997

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At 103, Hutchinson still champions
cause of women, social justice

A UMNS Feature
by Frances S. Smith*

LOS ANGELES (UMNS) -- She has been called "the conscience of the United
Methodist Church."  Bishop Jack Tuell once labeled her "a burr under the
saddle."
Mildred Moore Hutchinson has lived all of her 103 years in East Los Angeles. 
Reminiscing recently about her eventful life, she said she got her start as a
social and community activist in the Metropolitan YWCA, where she was a board
member 18 years.  
"We fought to let people live where they wanted to," she said.  It was in the
McCarthy era and YWCA officers were among those required by the state to sign
a loyalty oath.  "That was the first time I got het up [sic]," she said. But
it was not the last time.
She marched with migrant farm workers, boycotted Nestle, went to Martin Luther
King rallies, protested the Vietnam War and demonstrated against Kodak’s
investments in South Africa.
She early championed the cause of women ministers.  In fact, Hutchinson tried
to include the possibility of women bishops in the first statement of Social
Principles for the new United Methodist Church approved in 1972.
As a delegate to the 1968 General Conference, Hutchinson was appointed to a
commission to draft the new statement.  It was to be a "new" document, not
simply combining the social creeds of the two uniting denominations.  "It was
a wonderful experience to have a part in the many hours of work and travel we
spent together," wrote Hutchinson in a slender volume telling her story, In
Gratitude for the Doors Others Have Opened. 
Hutchinson came by her social conscience naturally.  Her father was secretary
of an early railroad workers’ association.  He lost his job when the workers
went on strike.  Subsequently his real estate business foundered because "he
spent so much time working on Woodrow Wilson’s election," according to
Hutchinson.  Her mother was active in the Congregational Church and organized
a PTA.
Hutchinson and her husband joined the Methodist Church in 1933 to support a
"very social-action minded" minister.  "We worked together for the election of
Helen Gahagan Douglas to the U.S. Congress," she wrote.  Her  minister also
saw that she learned "how an annual conference  worked."  She became active in
the "Methodist Woman’s Society" after her husband’s death and eventually
chaired the district’s Christian Social Concerns Committee.
^From 1964-1968 she was president of the Women’s Society of Christian Service
of Southern California-Arizona Annual Conference of the Methodist Church.  In
the new California-Pacific Conference she was the first woman to chair the
Board of Christian Social Concerns.
Hutchinson is an ardent booster for Los Angeles.  "It’s a wonderful place but
it needs a lot of fixing," she told United Methodist News Service.  
First United Methodist Church, Los Angeles, has worked  hard to improve the
city. Until 1983, First Church occupied a 3,000-seat sanctuary in downtown Los
Angeles.  When other big churches moved out, First Church decided to stay and
serve the inner city.  It sold the beautiful sanctuary for $9 million and
bought an office building, which houses a sanctuary plus office space to rent.
 With the remaining funds, the United Methodist Urban Foundation was set up in
1983.  Hutchinson chairs the foundation, which has given more than $1 million
to Claremont School of Theology to start its Urban Ministry Program.  The
funds pay for faculty and staff urban intern stipends.  Michael A. Mata
occupies the Mildred M. Hutchinson Urban Ministry Chair.
Claremont School of  Theology saluted Hutchinson Oct. 18 at a dinner marking
the school’s 40th year in Claremont.  Mildred’s 103rd birthday was the day
before.
Because of her concern about hunger and a conviction the religious community
should address it, Hutchinson threw herself into the work of the Southern
California Interfaith Hunger Coalition in the 1970s.  She is also a longtime
board member of Plaza Community Center, which operates a school, prenatal
clinic, family support and help to children.
Pat Reif, speaking at Mildred’s 100th birthday, said: "Mildred’s love of the
United Methodist Church is perhaps deeper  and stronger than that of anyone I
know . . . But Mildred is also a very ecumenical spirit.  Her love for her own
denomination does not in any way detract from her respect for other
denominations.  She realizes the need for all denominations to work together
against being of all people.  She is a great connector, always putting
together the right people for the right task.  She has a global vision and a
grasp of the interconnections among justice issues."
Hutchinson lives in the Hollenbeck Home, first retirement home in California. 
Her room is adorned with numerous plaques.  She was the first woman to receive
the Bishop Gerald Kennedy Award as Layperson of the Year in 1972.  Other
plaques to the City of Los Angeles, United Methodist Women, Interfaith Hunger
Coalition, annual conference and Methodist Federation for Social Action.  She
reads printed material with the help of a reading machine and knows exactly
where every file is.
Asked the source of her greatest satisfaction, she answered:  "The advancement
of women, lay as well as professional women.  One of the greatest changes has
been in the attitude women have about themselves.  It is up to the next
generation to see men and women work together and complement each other to
stabilize things."
#  #  #

	* Smith is retired director of the New York office of United Methodist News
Service, now living in Claremont, Calif.

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