Elisabeth Anthony Dexter was a social historian who contributed the longest-lived service in southern Europe on behalf of refugees from Nazi Germany, including Jews, of any American churchwoman during World War II.
During her graduate studies, Elisabeth started to identify with the feminist movement and decided to join the Unitarian Church, leaving her father’s liberal denomination of Free Baptists.
In Lisbon, she oversaw a relief program to sustain Jewish refugees who were stranded in Portugal in ‘’residence force’’ as they awaited opportunities to emigrate.
In 1942, she accepted a major role with the Office of Strategic Services to help pass information to the OSS and to recruit Spanish and other refugees to participate in various missions.
Elisabeth and Robert Dexter resigned from the Unitarian Service Committee in late 1944 and worked for a time with the Church Peace Union.