“Did a friendship exist between Lettie Cowman and Biddy Chambers?” a writer asked me recently.
“Sometimes when I read Streams in the Desert and My Utmost for His Highest, they seem to have similar themes. I wondered if the women knew each other.”
The short answer is yes.
Initial friendship: Oswald Chambers
They would have first heard of each through the Cowman’s friendship with Oswald Chambers.
Juji Nakada introduced Chambers to the Cowmans when they first met in Japan. You can read the post explaining that here.
Chambers sailed with Lettie and Charles back to England in 1907. They spent weeks together on a steamship, toured Hong Kong and Canton together, and enjoyed each other’s company.
While Oswald and Biddy married in 1910 and honeymooned in America, it’s not clear if Biddy met the Cowmans at that time.
Oswald spoke at the God’s Bible School camp meeting which the Cowmans also attended that year. I don’t know if Biddy was with him at that time.
(She made a lasting friend in Ohio with whom she corresponded for years. She supposedly met the woman through God’s Bible School. My guess they probably met at this camp meeting.)
We have this photo. No one can tell if that is Oswald and Biddy in the far back left row. (OC had a hat like the one the man is wearing).
Given Oswald would have been a featured speaker, it’s unlikely he would have stood in the back row.
But, why would he not have been in the photo? The camp meeting only lasted one week.
(Your guess is as good as mine.)
A reread of Mrs. Oswald Chambers explains Biddy met Lettie at the National Holiness Camp Meeting at Denton, Delaware, if nowhere else!
Later friendship: Widowhood
While no correspondence between the two women remains, we know some letters were shared.
It seems likely one or both women would have sent condolences on the deaths of Oswald Chambers (1917) and/or Charles Cowman (1924).
Biddy began compiling the readings that make up My Utmost for His Highest in 1924. Lettie first published Streams in the Desert in January 1924.
It’s possible Lettie mailed Biddy a copy. They only printed 3,000 copies at first because they doubted the devotional would sell.
Perhaps Biddy examined the devotional (She always used The Daily Light for her devotional) and realized the potential for creating a devotional herself.
Biddy already had been editing and releasing versions of Oswald’s talks. If she could edit them even “tighter” into 250-300 word devotionals, she could turn them into a book.
It took her three years, but she did so. My Utmost for His Highest came out in January 1927.
I’m sure she sent a copy to Lettie.
Lettie had several personally inscribed books in her what remains of her library, houses at One Mission Society headquarters.
Meeting each other
While I don’t know the exact date Lettie and Biddy met, I know it was in England in the mid-1930s.
If not before.
Among Lettie’s papers, I found Biddy’s address and that of two of her friends.
Miss Ashe and George Swan both lived in Cairo at the time. Lettie sailed with her friend Elizabeth Howells to Egypt in 1937.
It makes sense the two middle-aged women would have carried letters of introduction to missionaries on the field in Egypt.
In addition, the Oswald Chambers Publications Association made at least one donation (five pounds?) to The Oriental Missionary Society during these years.
Oswald always liked the Cowmans. Lettie and Biddy had a lot in common–the Holiness Movement, ministry, Jesus, widowhood, book writing.
No photo of the two women together, but plenty of indication they had a long friendship.
Those who love My Utmost for His Highest and Streams in the Desert are among the many beneficiaries of two God-led women.
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I love your thoughts and speculations on the relationship between these two ladies. Reminds me of my mother’s vast corespondence with friends and aquaintances around the world in the days long before the Internet – and when even phones were rare. Through the years, her address books were full of names. That must have been one way she managed to navigate her way in strange cities when necessary. Streams in the Desert was one off her favorite books.
I like the way you search for people, facts, history, and places. My mind works a bit like that. Connecting dots that finally bring a picture to life!