Mary Queen of Bees: Mary [Molly] Wesley Whitelamb [1696–1734] Sister of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, Epworth, England

By Diane Glancy

Crippled in childhood, Mary Wesley, sister of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, speaks of the Wesley household in first-person narrative built on the facts of her life.
Mary lived in a strict Christian family, one of 19 children, 10 of whom survived. Her mother, Susanna Wesley, imposed a regiment where "not one child after a year old was heard to cry out." Her father, Samuel Wesley, a minister at Epworth, could not provide for his family, and spent time in debtor's prison. The family taunted Mary's awkwardness and showed little sympathy for her affliction.
At one point Mary addresses her family from the outside. "There go the ragged Wesley's. Beggars themselves. They are in a house so crowded love could not grow. Only survival. As plants overcrowded in a garden bend and twist their way toward sunlight, out of necessity smothering those closest to them."
Mary Queen of Bees is a study in hardship in early 18th century England. Through the rigors of despondency in the aftermath of her wounding, the brightness of Mary's spirit emerges. The novel of reactivated history pokes Mary's voice from childhood to her death in childbirth at the age of 37, when the bees leave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Apr 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781498242493

Diane Glancy

Diane Glancy is professor emerita at Macalester College. She has published six books with Wipf & Stock— Uprising of Goats (2014), One of Us (2015), Ironic Witness (2015), Mary Queen of Bees (2017), and The Servitude of Love (2017). Check out my interview with Sheila Tousey

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Mary Queen of Bees

Mary [Molly] Wesley Whitelamb [1696–1734]

Sister of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church

Epworth, England

Diane Glancy

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They compassed me as bees

—Psalm 118:12

Table of Contents

Title Page

Mary Queen of Bees

Afterword

Mary Queen of Bees

Mary [Molly] Wesley Whitelamb [1696–1734] Sister of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, Epworth, England

Copyright © 2017 Diane Glancy. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1765-2

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4220-9

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4249-3

Manufactured in the U.S.A. June 15, 2017

For the quote from Susanna, Mother of the Wesleys:

Copyright @ 1968 Abingdon Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For the two quotes from the Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley:

Copyright @ 1980 Abingdon Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Journal of George Fox, 1648–1652, Early Ministry: www.hallvworthington.com/wjournal/gfjournal2a.html

The letters of Mary Wesley and Amelia Wesley to their brother, John Wesley:

Maser, Frederick E., Seven Sisters in Search of Love, The Story of John Wesley’s Sisters, Academy Books, Rutland, Vermont,

1988

. The book acknowledged:

Stevenson, George J., Memorials of the Wesley Family, London: S. W. Partridge, New York: Nelson and Phillips,

1876

The four passages of Susanna Wesley:

Susanna Wesley, The Complete Writings, edited by Charles Wallace, Jr. Oxford University Press,

1997

, by permission of Oxford University Press

I still wake as a child at the head of the stairs in the servant’s arms who miss-stepped and we fell down the stairs. Turning my feet under. At my mother’s insistence, we were not allowed to cry out. I was quiet as the servant started to fall, unable to catch herself and stop our fall. The servant herself falling over me turning both my feet inward never to walk again without a crutch or a sister on either side. I cried when the pain hit at the bottom of the stairs. Unable to stop my howling.

We weren’t allowed to do anything that wasn’t church. We were his lambs as he was Lamb. The wool of the Lord was a fire to me.

Our mother taught us to read and write so we could study scripture, but what could we do with it? Teach it to our own daughters who themselves would be a garden surrounded by a wall, shut up with no outlet as we had none? Or as a governess, providing others with knowledge they too could hold inside?

Why this learning if all we were to do was to have children? Our mother, Susanna, held church services for us when our father was in debtor’s prison. She didn’t like the locum he hired to preach in his place. Soon others came to her services. Crowds gathered in our house on Sunday afternoons to hear Susanna Wesley read her husband’s old sermons. During the week, she taught our school lessons. It always felt like Sunday.

I put salt grains on my tongue to sting it. For words not spoken that I wanted to speak. In-between the conjugation of verbs, I wanted to by-pass them and not give them thought.

What did I want to give voice? Not the hymns my mother insisted upon. I did not feel like singing. I hated the sound of my voice. It had no song in it. Why force it? Why make a tongue to sing? It brought me humbly before the Lord. I would not be a song-bird on the branch of a tree that constantly sang to Him. To give praise and thanksgiving. My scrawny voice thin as the blanket that covered us at night.

Her stomach big with another child. Why so many? Couldn’t we do with less? I think they heard me. As many infants died as lived. I cried in misery, quietly to myself. I wished them dead so I could have a corner of the bed. A piece of the quilt. So I could have a chair at the table. So I could have bread. And what would we do as women? Marry and have children.

If the dead ones had names I didn’t know them. They were born. They cried. They stopped crying. Sometimes they were born without crying. Jedidiah was one of the names.

My body jumped in bed before I slept. I was in the servant’s arms at the top of the stairs about to fall. My sisters mocked me. You would think children would have mercy, but they do not. They continued to taunt.

Sometimes there was thunder.

We heard rain. If you cover your head it is warmer. If you leave your stockings on in bed.

The smell of sickness. Vomiting. Running bowels. Brothers and sisters everywhere. It was our job to clean them. The servant could only do so much. IF YOU’RE GETTING SICK, GET OUT OF BED SO WE DON’T HAVE TO PULL OFF SHEETS AND COVERS AND CLEAN THE WHOLE BED. Pulling the mattress out to air. Dragging it down and up the stairs.

THROW UP ON THE FLOOR. Not in the middle of the bed.

I pinched Hetty when she made her body jump, making fun of me. As we were not allowed to cry, I pinched her again. She hit back on the sore places on