Jennie Fowler Willing

Jennie Fowler Willing (January 22, 1834 – October 6, 1916) was a Canadian-born American educator, author, preacher, social reformer, and suffragist.

Her maternal grandmother was disinherited because she chose to share the wilderness perils with an itinerant minister, Henry Ryan.

He could give his children little more than a hatred of tyranny, constant industry, careful economy and good morals.

The next year, she finished teaching the winter term of a village school, from which the "big boys" had "turned out" their young man teacher.

[6] In 1853, at the age of 19, she married William Crossgrove Willing, a Methodist Episcopal Church minister,[9] and went with him to western New York.

With Miller, she issued the call for the Cleveland convention, and she presided over that body, in which the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (NWCTU) was organized.

[9] Willing was drawn into public speaking by her temperance zeal, and soon she found herself addressing immense audiences in all the large cities of the U.S.. As one of the corresponding secretaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, she presented the temperance claims at conferences of ministers, and in scores of large towns in different parts of the U.S., interesting thousands of people in its work.

[6] Her other roles included superintendent of the NWCTU's Evangelistic Training Department, and president of the Frances Willard WCTU.

Jennie Fowler Willing
Jennie Fowler Willing