“I felt that women working together with wide interests for large ends was a new thing under the sun and that, perhaps they had a need for special petition and meditation of their own.”
– Mary Stewart
Photo credit: British Columbia Women’s Institute
Mary Stewart’s contribution to the Women’s Club was more spiritual in nature than that of Jane Cunningham Croly, but she was no less a trailblazer.
Mary was born in 1876 in Ohio but spent most of her formative years in the Colorado Rockies. She was hired as a teacher fresh out of college, was soon elevated to principal at the Longmont, CO, high school, and went on to be the Dean of Women and a teacher of Latin and English at the University of Montana. In later years, she had the privelege of serving as Assistant Director of the fledgeling United States Employment Service, Department of Labor, where she was in charge of junior guidance and placement.
She was also part of the rapidly growing Women’s Club movement and was active in the Women’s Suffrage movement. She believed strongly in women working together for a collective purpose and wanted to create a something that spoke to the unique camaraderie they were building.
In 1904, while still working at the Longmont High School, she penned a prayer she came to call “Collect for Club Women”. The Collect spread nationwide, and then to the rest of the world. In 1915, Mrs. Alfred Watt introduced the Collect in England as their Women’s Institutes were forming. It was also revised at this time by Miss Stewart (with Mrs. Alfred Watt’s son, Robin Watt) personally as over the years errors and other alterations had crept into the text. In 1920 it was adopted by the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. It was read into the Congressional Record in 1949 and has also been set to music. Mary died in 1943 at the age of 67, but she lives on in countless clubs, including our own, who still recite the “Mary Stewart Collect” at every meeting.
Collect for Club Women
Keep us, O God, from pettiness;
let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.
Let us be done with fault-finding and
leave off self-seeking.
May we put away all pretense and meet each
other face to face — without self-pity
and without prejudice.
May we never be hasty in judgment and
always generous.
Let us take time for all things;
make us to grow calm, serene, gentle.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses,
straightforward and unafraid.
Grant that we may realize it is the little
things that create differences,
that in the big things of life we are at one.
And may we strive to touch and to know the great,
common human heart of us all, and
O Lord God, let us forget not to be kind!
–Mary Stewart
References:
The British Columbia Women’s Institute, https://www.bcwi.ca/blog/6uc65ijnxg3f21tqe7ktyka9rsvo7o
Macomb Woman’s Club GFWC, https://macombwomansclub-gfwc.weebly.com/history-of-collect.html
South Deerfield Women’s Club 
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