By Bonnie Withers

I always enjoy coming upon notable UU women who had their roots in my home state of Wisconsin. Caroline Bartlett was born there in 1858. Her father taught her to read at age 4 and encouraged her studies up to the point she indicated she wanted to become a Unitarian minister. He flatly refused to help. She worked her way to that goal with short courses and independent studies, fit in between stints as a journalist and a teacher. Ordained in 1887, she served churches in Iowa, Michigan, and South Dakota. To all of them, she carried her strong belief in the social mission of the church.

       Caroline believed that a “church cannot be a place where we . . . come together once a week and enjoy our doctrine and congratulate ourselves that we have a faith free from superstition. We must do something for others, as well as for ourselves. And the more we have done for others, the more in the end, we shall find we have done for ourselves.”

After her marriage, Caroline left the ministry in 1898 to devote herself to the suffrage movement and to public health. After touring a slaughterhouse, she became especially involved in development of federal inspection legislation. Her work to improve urban sanitation gained national attention and brought her the title “America’s Housekeeper”.   Caroline Bartlett Crane remained an active member of the People’s Church (which she had built and named) in Kalamazoo, Michigan all the rest of her life.  She died on March 24, 1935.