Susan Norris Fitkin

At the age of seventeen Norris was diagnosed with cancer, and given a prognosis of no more than two years to live. After being bedridden for the next two years, in March 1890 Norris was converted to a saving knowledge of Christ.[14] In her autobiography Susan Norris Fitkin wrote:

Just as everything in my life, from the human standpoint, looked blackest, a new interest was suddenly awakened. A traveling Quaker preacher held some cottage meetings in our town. I attended and began to realize that even though I was a consistent church member, I was not a Bible Christian. ... I went to the altar seeking God, but was ignorant of the way of faith and did not get through to victory, but continued to pray and search the Scriptures for light and blessing. I began now with new interest to attend the Quaker meetings in the old Meeting House, which was up on a hill almost directly across the highway from my home. My grandparents had been consistent members here all their lives. Many aged saints still gathered there and gave wonderful testimonies about knowing their sins were all forgiven and their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The Grace of conviction deepened in my heart. I found only warnings as I read my Bible. I became very miserable and knew I was a lost soul and on my way to hell. Finally I found some comfort in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and began to realize a little of God's gracious provision for lost souls in the tragedy of the cross, portrayed by the prophet, and the goodness of God led me to repentance. I was not only sorry for the past, but gladly forsook all worldliness and sin, and continued earnestly to seek God. I had not yet learned the way of faith, but one day, when turning the pages of my Bible and praying for a message, these words seemed to stand out in raised letters: “I have blotted out thy sins as a thick cloud, and will remember them no more forever.” I wondered if it could really mean me, or how I could make it mine, when suddenly another verse in the New Testament seemed to be emphasized in the same manner. As I read “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life,” I said: “Oh, if I just believe, I shall have it,” and as my faith looked up to God and I trusted His word, the burden rolled away and heavenly light flooded my soul. I was a new creature; everything seemed new, — the sun, the trees, the green fields, the birds, all seemed new. Old things had passed away. My heart was filled with joy and gladness. God in His great love and mercy had given me a sky-blue conversion, which the devil was never able to make me doubt. What a marvelous Grace that brings us into the family of God, and gives us victory over the world, the flesh and the devil!"[15]

To the displeasure of some friends and family members, after her conversion Susan Norris began attending the Union Chapel, an interdenominational church in East Farnham that was strongly evangelical in emphasis, instead of the local Church of England.!"[15] According to Nazarene historian Stan Ingersol "Each different strain of piety nourished her spiritual development. Several encounters with life-threatening illnesses, including typhoid fever, heightened her seriousness toward religion. At times, she experienced unusual dreams and saw visions."[16]

Late in the summer of 1890 Norris was stricken with typhoid. In her autobiography, Fitkin described a dream she had at this time: "At the end of this valley was a gate with a beautiful heavenly light streaming through, and lighting up the entire scene. Oh, I was so happy! I said, 'It is not dark at all; death is only a shadow.' Then the Lord whispered to me, and asked if I wanted to go in. I replied, 'Whatever is Thy will; I would not turn my hand over to decide.'" When dawn broke, Norris awakened, as one who had been refreshed by hidden springs of life. She said to the family, "I am going to get well."[17] Gradually Norris recovered her health during the next few months.

In December 1890 Norris had a vision of Christ's Second Coming where she was intensely happy until she realized that many people would not be going to heaven.[14] In her autiobiography Norris described her vision of Christ: "I ran to the door to meet Him when I was startled with loud wailing cries, and looking back, I saw most of the people on their faces, crying out in fear and anguish."[17] Norris claimed that after she woke that she became conscious of the presence of Jesus: "It was like a person standing by my bed and in an audible voice saying solemnly: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.'"[17][18] Consequently, Norris believed God was calling her to be a missionary preacher. However, when she offered herself as a missionary to the Toronto headquarters of the China Inland Mission in 1891, Norris was refused for health reasons.[10] Norris later indicated she came across Ezekiel 3:5 and the words jumped out at her: "For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language." Norris accepted this an indication that God did not want her to go to a foreign land as a missionary.[14]

In April 1891 Susan Norris was employed as a dressmaker and living on her widowed mother's farm in Farnham East with her an older sister Anna, and six younger siblings.[19] In 1891 visiting English evangelists, who were staying in her family home, led Norris into a deeper relationship with God. On the flyleaf of her Bible she wrote her consecration creed, which "helped and steadied me many times through the coming years." This was as follows: "My Consecration -- I am willing-- To take what Thou givest; To lack what Thou withholdest; To relinquish what Thou takest; To go where Thou commandest; To be what Thou requirest; I am, O Lord, wholly and forever Thine."[17] Soon after Norris began conducting services for youth in her community and then, at her mother's urging, in other communities. Out of this, her ministry as an evangelist began emerging around 1892.

In Summer 1892 Norris was elected by her local Christian Endeavor Society to be a delegate to the first world convention of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where she met J. Walter Malone (born August 11, 1857, near Marathon, Ohio; died December 30, 1935, in Cleveland Ohio),[20] leader in the fast-growing holiness wing of the Society of Friends,[10] who, with his wife Emma Brown Malone (born January 30, 1859, in Pickering, Ontario; died May 10, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio),[21] had founded the Christian Workers’ Training School for Bible Study and Practical Methods of Work in Cleveland, Ohio in 1892.[1][22][23]

Despite her precarious health and opposition from some of her siblings, in the fall of 1892 Norris enrolled a few weeks late in the first academic class at Malone's school, also known as Friends' Bible Institute and Training School (and now as Malone University).[10] Among her classmates was Mary Emily Soule (born August 12, 1869, in Dunham, Quebec, Canada; died June 26, 1943, in Vicksburg, Michigan),[24] a fellow Canadian Quaker, who with her husband Edgar Ellyson, also became prominent leaders in the Church of the Nazarene.[1] Shortly after joining Cleveland's Friends, Norris became "seriously ill with cancer. She was anointed and prayed for by J. Walter and Emma B. Malone, and it pleased the Lord to answer prayer and heal her."[25] Believing that God had healed her of cancer,[14] Norris began preaching in revivals.[10]

In 1895, at the urging of one of the leading New York Quakers, Norris returned to evangelism.[10] At a camp meeting in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Clintondale, New York, Norris claimed to be entirely sanctified.[26][27] Norris had sought the experience of entire sanctification and had previously claimed it by faith several times, and had preached often on the doctrine, but was still unsatisfied in her experience.[28] Norris desired "to be sanctified wholly, cleansed from inherited sin, the old man cast out, the carnal nature destroyed, and to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire."[29] After, what she later described as a "battle with the enemy", at the conclusion of the service Norris responded to the altar call and claimed the experience despite an absence of emotion.[30]

At the camp meeting where she was sanctified entirely, Norris met Abram Fitkin, a Quaker evangelist.[26][27] For the next six months Norris was teamed with Abram,[31] pursuing an itinerant ministry in New York state; Norris borrowed books on holiness from Abram, and the pair were able to convert many to their church through their ministry – all the while finding themselves falling in love.[32]

On May 14, 1896,[32] Susan Norris and Abram E. Fitkin were married by Quaker minister William Thomas Willis, at his home in Clintondale.[10][33] After their wedding, the Fitkins continued to hold revival meetings throughout the Northeastern United States, where "hundreds were converted and many led into the experience of full salvation".[34] A month after their marriage, their revival campaign led to a group of converts organizing the Clintondale Pentecostal Church, with future Nazarene General Superintendent Rev. Hiram F. Reynolds, then a Methodist minister, deciding to join at that time.[35]

In October 1896, the Fitkins rented a former blacksmith shop in Hopewell Junction, New York, where they conducted their services, with the result that "scores were converted"; in November, sixty of the converts were organized into a church,[36] with the Fitkins agreeing to be the pastors.[37] At Abram Fitkin's recommendation, the church affiliated with the newly established Association of Pentecostal Churches of America (APCA), a holiness denomination led at that time by William Howard Hoople.[38][39] Soon after, the Fitkins started another church in Cornwall, New York, which they also pastored.[39] In 1898 Abram Fitkin was ordained as a minister in the APCA at Brooklyn.[40]

By 1900, the Fitkins were co-pastors of the APCA church in South Manchester, Connecticut,[41] where they lived in a rented house on Main Street.[2] On April 12, 1900, Susan Fitkin was elected president of the APCA's Women's Foreign Missionary Auxiliary at its second annual meeting, held in Saratoga Springs, New York.[42] During the last four months of 1900, the Fitkins devoted their efforts to traveling evangelism.[41]

As a consequence of the ongoing depressed economic circumstances caused by the Panic of 1893, Abram struggled financially while serving as a pastor and evangelist, with little financial support possible from the church.[43] It was noted that these "were times when the food on the parsonage table had literally been prayed in by Abram and Susan", who could turn a soup bone into a week of meals.[44] During 1903, Abram left pastoral ministry and ceased his evangelistic work[45] to devote his attention to making sufficient income to support both his family and the couple's future ministry, believing that it was "better to be a good businessman than a poor minister."[46] His aim was to make enough for he and Susan to be independent enough to pursue God's work, setting a goal of $500,000 (equivalent to $16.3 million in 2022).[47]

By 1904, the Fitkins had moved to Everett, Massachusetts, where Susan became the pastor of the APCA church.[48] During their time in Massachusetts, Susan had their first two children: Raleigh (b. 1904) and Mary-Louise (b. 1907). The year Mary-Louise was born, the APCA merged with the Church of the Nazarene, which had been founded in California in October 1895 by Phineas Bresee and Joseph Widney, to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (simplified to Church of the Nazarene in 1919), automatically making the Fitkins a founding family of the new denomination.

By the end of 1907, the Fitkins and their two children had moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Abram could pursue increased business activities.[47] There, they became members of the John Wesley Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, located at the corner of Saratoga Avenue and Sumpter Street, Brooklyn,[49] pastored by William Howard Hoople.[50] Their third child, Willis Carradine, named in honor of evangelist Beverly Carradine, was born in 1908.[51]

In 1909, and despite both still being in their 30s, Bresee ordained Susie Fitkin and her husband as elders of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene.[52] Susan appreciated the importance of the ceremony, but felt that it only confirmed the path that God had placed her on years earlier, as "He had definitely spoken these precious words to my heart, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.'"[53]

By April 1910, the Fitkins lived in their own home on Wallis Avenue, in Queens,[54] and in 1912 they had their fourth (and last) child, Ralph MacFarland.[47]

After a fishing trip with his father in August 1914,[55] nine-year-old Raleigh was thrown from their car after its axle broke. Though he seemed uninjured, by the next day Raleigh was suffering debilitating abdominal pain. Despite an operation in a home in Allenhurst, New Jersey, and the efforts of six physicians, Raleigh died on September 14, less than two weeks after his 10th birthday.[56] Raleigh, inspired by his parents' strong belief in the religious work they were doing, had testified to becoming a Christian at age 6, and had indicated that he wanted to be a missionary in Africa.[57]

Early in 1916 Susan Fitkin began dreaming of building a missionary chapel in Africa in memory of Raleigh. Abram Fitkin provided the funds to construct the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial church, "the first tangible memorial to that would-be child missionary, Raleigh",[60] at Piggs Peak, Swaziland.

In October 1916 the Fitkins advised Hiram F. Reynolds, a general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene and head of its foreign missionary program, that they would "provide the money for the erection of a memorial hospital in Africa."[61] The Fitkins donated funds to build the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, a small 18-bed facility built on the Nazarene mission compound at Piggs Peak, Swaziland, which opened in 1920.[62][63] By 1919 the Nazarene mission station at Piggs Peak, formerly known as the Camp Station, was renamed the Fitkin Memorial Station.[64] In 1925 the Swaziland government granted 35 acres of land fifty miles further south at Bremersdorp to the Church of the Nazarene for a hospital closer to the population centre of the country.[63][65] After the opening of the new Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital in 1927, the old hospital building was used to house a portion of the Piggs Peak Nazarene Primary School.[66]

By January 1920 the Fitkins resided at 271 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn.[67] However, by December 1926, the Fitkins and their family lived at 8 Remsen Street, Brooklyn.[68]

Excluding the $10,000 contributed by members of the Church of the Nazarene from 1926,[69] the Fitkins and Mrs Ada E. Bresee were the principal donors of the substantial amount given to build the replacement 80-bed Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital (RFMH) for the Church of the Nazarene in Bremersdorp, Swaziland.[63][70][71] By June 1925 the first stage was dedicated,[72] and on July 16, 1927, RFMH hospital was dedicated by Susan Norris Fitkin.[73][74]

That same year, the Fitkins also paid off the $50,000 mortgage of the John Wesley Church of the Nazarene, where they held their church membership since 1907,[75] and gave $14,000 for Nazarene missions.[76]

By June 1927, the Fitkins lived at a large estate, called "Milestones",[77] that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean at 16 and 18 Corlies Avenue (at the corner of Ocean Avenue), Allenhurst, New Jersey.[78] After a trip to California, they relocated the original colonial house to the rear of the property,[79] and had a 20-room, 3-story bungalow constructed in its place as the family residence.[80] In June 1927, daughter Mary-Louise married Esley Foster Salsbury at "Milestones", in a ceremony conducted by her cousin, Rev. Chauncey David Norris.[81] In October 1927, son Willis married Helen Shubert in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.[82]

By July 1927 Abram Fitkin bought a 160-acre farm on the south side of the county road between Colt's Neck and Scobeyville, New Jersey for $26,000, which included an apple and peach orchards, crops, livestock, farm machinery, outbuildings and a century-old fifteen room house, which the Fitkins intended to have enlarged and remodeled in order to use as an orphanage.[83] Later that year they donated $1,000,000 to build and endow the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Institution, a hospital and home for crippled children on the state highway, between Eatontown and Freehold Borough, New Jersey.[84] The plans included the purchase of 200 acres to establish a self-supporting farm to fund the institute.

In 1928, the Fitkins donated $1,000,000 to Yale University for the care and treatment of children in memory of their oldest son, Raleigh,[85] with $500,000 for the study of children's diseases,[86] and another $500,000 for the construction of a 125-bed hospital[87] at the New Haven Hospital at 789 Howard Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut.[88][89]

Escalating construction costs resulted in the Fitkins donating an additional $100,000 in June 1929 to build the now larger six-story 136-bed Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Pavilion for Children.[88][89] The donation allowed the expansion and consolidation of pediatric inpatient facilities in a single building.[90] The Fitkins dedicated the hospital on February 8, 1930,[91] with fifty beds on two floors assigned to pediatrics, special rooms for premature babies, and the Fitkins' donations also being used to facilitate pediatric outpatient and infectious isolation wards in nearby buildings.[90] The Fitkin wards remained the inpatient pediatric service at the hospital until the 1980s.[90]

Also in 1928, the Fitkins gave $1,000,000 to create the Ralph Fitkin Ward Unit in honor of their youngest child (then 16), for the "study and treatment of diseases of childhood".[92]

By May 1930, in order to further honor their deceased son, and in memory of A.E. Fitkin & Co. Vice-President Paul L. Morgan, who died of pneumonia at the age of 32,[93] the Fitkins contributed $500,000 to the Spring Lake Hospital Society to build the Fitkin-Morgan Memorial Hospital at Corlies Avenue in Neptune Township, New Jersey.[94] The hospital, which opened in November 1931.[95] was founded as a non-profit, accessible to all "regardless of their ability to pay".[96][97]

In 1966, the hospital's corporate name was changed to Jersey Shore University Medical Center - Fitkin Hospital.[98]

Abram Raleigh Fitkin was born September 3, 1904, in Everett, Massachusetts, and died September 7, 1914.[48]

Mary-Louise Fitkin Hooper was born June 12, 1907, in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and died in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on August 14, 1987.[48][100] She attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn,[101] and studied for a year at Stanford University[102] until leaving in June 1928.[103]

Mary Louise was married and divorced three times, between 1928 and 1949. She first married Esley Foster Salsbury on June 14, 1928, at "Milestones", the Fitkin home in Allenhurst, New Jersey.[104] In April 1930 the Salsburys lived with Susan Norris Fitkin in Oakland, California.[105] They had one child, Suzanne Mary Salsbury (born 1933),[106] and they divorced sometime before August 1938.

By August 1938, Mary-Louise had married Dr. Karl Josef Deissler[107] a German physician who had fled Germany for the US in 1931 because of his liberal ideas and fears of Nazi persecution.[108][109] Deissler was excluded from the US western defense area from September 1942 until November 1943 as an enemy alien,[110] During their period of separation, Mary-Louise and her daughter lived in Illinois. The Deisslers divorced in 1946,[111] and Mary-Louise and Suzanne moved to Carmel, California.

In late 1947, Mary-Louise married Clifford Hooper, an African American whom she had met while campaigning for the NAACP; they married in Seattle, Washington, as the laws of California did not allow inter-racial marriages.[112] After living in Vancouver, British Columbia, for a year, the Hoopers separated, and were divorced in 1949.

By June 1950, a year before her mother's death, Mary-Louise had become a Quaker. She returned to Stanford University in 1953 to complete her degree, graduating in June 1955.[103] She was active in helping to improve inter-racial relations, and supported the efforts in Africa to end colonialism and apartheid.[103][113] She migrated to South Africa in 1955, where she supported the African National Congress.[114] She was arrested and ordered deported in 1957.[115] Returning to the United States, she continued to be vocal and active in her opposition to apartheid, organizing boycotts of South African goods,[116] and invited Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at a 1965 South Africa Benefit, where he called for economic sanctions against South Africa.[117][118]

Willis Carradine "Bud" Fitkin was born October 10, 1908, in Hollis, New York, and died November 8, 1980, in Meredith, New Hampshire.[119] He attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn.[120] He married Helen E. Shubert, on October 22, 1927, in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.[121] They had four children: Abraham Edward (born 1929),[122] Willis C. III (born about 1931), Joyce (Pietri) (born about 1933),[123] and Karen E. (Draper).[124]

Fitkin was a vice-president, director and stockholder in A.E. Fitkin & Co. and A.E. Fitkin & Sons from 1932;[120] president and chairman of Michigan Gas Utilities Co from April 1953;[125] a member of the board of directors of Tampa Electric Co. until 1979;[120] and was a member of the board of trustees of the Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Neptune, New Jersey, from its opening in November 1931.[95][120]

Ralph MacFarland Fitkin (March 7, 1912 - July 16, 1962),[126] attended Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn until 1930, attended Yale University in 1931–1932,[127] married Lorene Billie Hastings on February 13, 1932, in Elkton, Maryland. The couple had three sons: Reed Keawaiki (born 1939),[127] Thomas Hastings (born 1943),[128] and Scott Norris (born 1945).[129] Ralph was a vice-president, director and stockholder in A.E. Fitkin & Co. and A.E. Fitkin & Sons from 1932;[127] served as a lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II, working in the cable censor's office in Hawaii,[130] before retiring from the US Navy as a lieutenant commander;[131] and was the owner of KHON in Honolulu, Hawaii, from its founding in 1946[132] until at least 1952.[133]