Missouri H. Stokes (July 24, 1838 – November 27, 1910) was an American social reformer and writer of the long nineteenth century associated with the temperance movement. While in charge of the Mission Day School in Atlanta, and very successful in that missionary field, found herself drawn into the crusade for temperance after it expanded into the South. In 1880, Stokes became a member of the Atlanta Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the first local Union organized in Georgia. In 1881, she became its secretary, and when the State WCTU was organized in 1883, she was appointed State Corresponding Secretary, holding both offices until her resignation in 1893. For years, she was the Georgia Special Correspondent of The Union Signal, and for various papers in her own State, she furnished temperance articles. Stokes was one of the Georgia women to whose efforts the State was largely indebted for the passage of its General Local Option Law and also for its Scientific Instruction in the Public Schools, thousands of petitions for both these measures being sent by Stokes through the post office.
Early life and education
Missouria (often written, "Missouri") Horton Stokes was born in Gordon County, Georgia, July 24, 1838, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Stevens, which had been occupied by the missionaries to the Cherokee. Her parents were Joseph Hale Stokes and Mary Watson (Stevens) Stokes. On her mother's side she was of English, Welsh and Scotch descent; on her father's of Welsh and Irish ancestry. Her paternal grandfather, Stokes, was a native of Ireland, who fought on the side of the Thirteen Colonies in the Revolutionary War, and at its close, settled in South Carolina. His family was a large one. The Stevenses were planters, and the Stokeses were professional men. Rev. William H. Stokes, a Baptist clergyman and an uncle of Miss Stokes, edited in 1834–1843 the first temperance paper ever published in the South. Her father was a lawyer and in those pioneer days was necessarily much away from home. He was killed in a railroad accident, while she was yet a child. Her maternal grandfather, Thomas Stevens, a planter and slave owner. Missouri had a brother, Thomas (Thomie) J. Stokes (b. 1837).
She was tutored at home until she was thirteen years old, with the exception of several years spent in Marietta, Georgia. Her mother and her half-sister, Mary Ann Harris Gay, were her teachers. The family moved to Decatur, Georgia, where she attended the academy. She then became a pupil of Rev. John S. Wilson, principal of the Hannah More Female Seminary, from which institution she was graduated after a three-year course in the regular college studies.
At this period of her life, her then widowed mother and the little family moved to Decatur, Georgia, hear Atlanta. Here, after a few years at the academy, Stokes became a pupil of Rev. John S. Wilson, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian Church and principal of the Hannah More Female Institute, from which school she graduated in 1858, after a three year's course in the usual collegiate studies. Next to her mother, this man had more to do with the forming of her character than any other person, for he was her pastor as well as her teacher, she having united with the Decatur Presbyterian Church in 1853. Her religious impressions, however, she dated back to her earliest years and her mother's teachings and to a three year's residence in Marietta where, at the age of seven, she began to read the Bible for herself and to take a deep interest in the Sabbath School and the preached word.
Career
Educator
She became interested in foreign missions, from reading the life of Ann Hasseltine Judson. Stokes showed an early liking for teaching, and after graduating, in 1858, she taught for several years, including those of the Civil War. During the war, Stokes kept a journal. Her only brother, Thomas J. Stokes, was killed in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Her mother died soon after the close of the war. Her widowed sister-in-law and young nephew were then added to the household, and she gladly devoted herself to home duties, abandoning all teaching for several years, excepting a music class and a few private pupils.
From 1874 to 1877, she had charge of the Departments of English Literature and of Mental and Moral Science in the Dalton Female College. From 1879 to 1881 she taught a private school in Atlanta, Georgia, and for the next four years, she was in charge of the mission day school of the Marietta Street Methodist Episcopal Church, visiting the parents of the pupils and sometimes holding Bible readings among them.