Reverend Harriet Elizabeth Dalbey was the twenty-eighth minister to serve Fairhaven Methodist Church and the first woman in that position. Dalbey might not have held a Doctor in Divinity degree like other ministers who have led Fairhaven, but she was probably the most travelled and she had the most diverse professional background than any other minister in Fairhaven Church history. Her long career was extraordinary and breath-taking in its scope and included positions in the fields of: social work, evangelism, ministry, and administration across three continents.
Dalbey was born February 9, 1903, the eldest of two daughters of Hershel and Harriet Lawrence Dalbey in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Reverend Dalbey never used the name Harriet; perhaps she didn’t like it, or perhaps to avoid confusion with her mother. Her family was enumerated near Canonsburg at the time of the 1910 census. Dalbey’s father held a Bachelor’s Degree and worked as a teacher. The Dalbey family moved to Pittsburgh in 1914 where they lived, first on Jarvell Street and, at the time of the 1920 census, at 29 Jackson Street in Highland Park. Dalbey graduated from Allegheny High School 1923. Next to her yearbook photograph is the verse, “Always the same sweet maid; To those in distress, she’s ready, A hand to lend in aid.”
The Dalbey family moved to Erie in 1925. Reverend Dalbey went to school at the Edinboro State College (probably in the evenings); as she taught grade school during the day in order to pay her tuition. At the time of the 1930 census, her family lived at 2702 Hastings Road in the Millcreek area of Erie.
Dalbey’s real passion was missionary work. As a child, she had lined up her dolls and preached to them in a make-believe language. So, preparing for that career in 1930, Dalbey moved to Kansas City, Missouri to study at the Kansas City National Training School for Deaconesses and Missionaries from where she graduated in 1932. The next five years she worked as a Home Missionary in a variety of cities in the Midwestern United States.
In 1938, she was assigned a position in Korea as an evangelist and social worker. Two years later, in December 1940, her work in Korea ended prematurely when she and 500 other missionaries were evacuated due to escalating tensions in that country.
When Dalbey arrived back in the United States, she enrolled at Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee where she earned an Associate Degree in Business Administration, but, her eyes were still on missionary work. Pursuing that ambition, she went to the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut where she studied African culture and, “the African problem.” Presumably, the course’s content addressed the health and social work concerns on that continent, as well as, the challenges of being a missionary in countries that were transitioning from colonial status to that of independent nations. Dalbey then went to New York City to attend the Berlitz School of Languages for a crash course in French before she headed to her next assignment.
She left New York on June 28, 1947 for the port of Matadi, Belgian Congo, now called the Congo. She travelled to the interior of the country where she worked as the head of a girls’ school in the village of Wembo Nyna. Her jobs were wide and varied, once she was forced to deliver a baby.
In 1952, her father’s health failing, she left the Belgian Congo for Durban, South Africa, where she boarded an ocean liner that took her to Cape Town, South Africa; Madeira, Portugal, and, last, South Hampton, England.
On June 24, 1952, she boarded the, “Queen Mary,” and arrived two weeks later at New York City. Dalbey returned to Erie where she applied as a ministerial candidate in the Erie Methodist Conference. After the death of her father in 1953, she was assigned as the minister to three churches in the Wattsburg, Pennsylvania area. She became a Methodist Deacon in 1956 and an Elder in 1958. She left her ministerial post in 1959 and accepted the position of Executive Director for the Neighborhood House in Wilmington, Delaware. She stayed until 1961 when she accepted the position of Director at the Methodist Deaconess Home in Philadelphia.
It is not clear what brought her back to Pittsburgh, but, after the censure and resignation of Fairhaven Church’s pastor, Frank Schaefer, in June 1966, Dalbey was assigned as a supply pastor to Fairhaven Methodist Church. She applied for admission to the Western Pennsylvania United Methodist Conference in 1968, where she was admitted on trial that year.
Dalbey’s sermons have been described as, “clear, understanding, and meaningful,” to which I can attest. Other than the funerals of my parents, the only funeral where I remember the pastor’s words was a funeral officiated by Reverend Dalbey. She was a homespun woman; some at Fairhaven found her to be a bit prickly. Dalbey was also a musician. Her talents included the ability to play the: piano, organ, trumpet, and trombone. Dalbey said, “I’ve done much of what I’ve done through necessity. When you do the best you can, the Lord blesses you and increases your abilities.”
Dalbey left Fairhaven in 1970 and retired to Erie, Pennsylvania. She died twenty years later, January 4, 1990, and was buried with her parents at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Erie.
