Addie Aylestock

Addie Aylestock (1909-1998) was a Canadian minister in the British Methodist Episcopal Church, the first woman minister to be ordained in that church,^[1] and the first black woman to be ordained in Canada.^[2]

Aylestock hailed from near Elmira, Ontario, from one of the many black farming communities in the province of Ontario;^[1] her family lived depending on where work was available.^[3] Her family was descended from blacks who settled along the Conestogo River in Regional Municipality of Waterloo and Wellington County, Ontario.^[4] She was raised in the (white) Methodist Church; she moved to Toronto when the Great Depression struck, and got a job as a domestic servant, and later as a dressmaker. A desire to become a missionary (in Liberia) led her to enroll in the (transdenominational) Toronto Bible College, from which she graduated in 1945. She joined the British Methodist Episcopal Church (an offshoot of the African Methodist Episcopal Church) and became a deaconess in 1944. Her first position was in the church in Africville. After the BME allowed for the ordination of women in 1951 (prompted by the church's superintendent belief in Aylestock's capability), she was the first to be ordained, and served as pastor in four different churches.^[2]

References

1. Walker, Barrington (2008). The History of Immigration and Racism in Canada: Essential Readings. Canadian Scholars’ Press. p. 240. ISBN 9781551303406.
2. Stebner, Eleanor J. (2008). Susan Hill Lindley, ed. The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History. Eleanor J. Stebner. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780664224547.
3. Hoerder, Dirk (2000). Creating Societies: Immigrant Lives in Canada. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 116. ISBN 9780773567986.
4. Henry, Natasha L. (2012). Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Emancipation Day in Canada. Dundurn. p. 46. ISBN 9781459700499.