Quarterly Meeting Memories
Elizabeth Atkinson Woodman
1880 – 1984
photo circa 1899
At the February Bucks Quarterly Meeting, Newtown Meeting member Susan Woodman Hoskins shared that she had been reading a family memoir entitled “The Story of My Parents,” written by Elizabeth Atkinson Woodman for her nieces, nephews and cousins. Elizabeth, a member of Wrightstown Meeting, lived on the family farm on Smith Road in Mozart, Buckingham Township until moving to the Friends Home in her later years. She was one of the first students at George School and was a teacher and nature lover as well as family historian. At the age of 97, Elizabeth attended the wedding of Susan Woodman and Scott Hoskins. This is an excerpt from her memoir about what Quarterly Meeting was like back at the beginning of the 20th century.
We went regularly to meeting and first day school, and to the quarterly meetings except Fallsington. This annual gathering was held in August during the busy summer harvest season and in addition required a long drive.
Elizabeth and Susan 1977
Langhorne Quarterly Meeting in November was always on Thanksgiving Day. There would be a long business session during which I would get tired and hungry. But the Meeting house was filled in those days, there was a spiritual atmosphere and speaking on religious values, and so the experience was good for us children as I can realize now.
Buckingham Quarterly Meeting was held in late May when the locust trees were in bloom. On our way to the meeting we passed many pretty locust trees and enjoyed the fragrance of the long drooping clusters of white blossoms. Here in beautiful surroundings children could again spend a few hours in a religious atmosphere.
Wrightstown’s time to entertain came in February when the weather was uncertain. But as the location was central and the building was on a turnpike, a good road in winter, the house was nearly always well filled. Mother (Louisa Herre Woodman) was one who had a part in the preparations. The Meetinghouse would be cleaned, and twice I was taken along to help wash the benches. The wood stoves were provided with plenty of fuel. After the close of the meeting the attendees went to the homes of members who lived in the neighborhood for dinner. We always went to mother’s old home (Atkinson’s) where a number of other people were also guests. It was not until several years later that the Quarterly Meeting guests could be invited to stay for dinner in what had been the schoolhouse, and mother had boiled hams to be sliced in the big farmer’s boiler.
Mother also attended Yearly Meeting at Race Street and sometimes took us children along. Occasionally she entertained a visiting Friend from a distance over night, and a religious meeting would be held in the living room. Thus our religious life was nurtured when we were young by example.