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Catherine Ezell (1913-1998) was a deaconess in the Methodist Church. She attended Central College (Missouri) from 1931-1933 and received her B. A. (1941) and M.A. (1951) from Scarritt College (Tennessee). Ezell taught in Missouri public schools from 1935 to 1939 and was commissioned a deaconess in 1940. From 1941 to 1945 she did rural church and community work in the Missouri Conference. In 1946 Ezell became the superintendent of Scarritt College's Rural Center in Crossville, Tennessee. She went to Hawaii in 1951-1954 to continue her work with rural churches and communities and became the superintendent of students at the Scarritt College in Hawaii. In 1954 Ezell was appointed the coordinator of a Georgia Rural Work program, and in 1955 she worked in Johnson City, Tennessee, with the Holston Valley Rural Work program. She served on the faculty of National College (Missouri) from 1959-1964 and was an assistant professor of rural work at Central College beginning in 1964.

The purpose of the Women's Society of World Service was to unite all the women of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in Christian fellowship, to make Christ known throughout the world, to develop a personal responsibility for the whole task of the Church through a program of education, service, prayer and giving for the maintenance and advancement of the missionary work of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (Discipline 1951).

When the Church of the United Brethren and the Evangelical Church merged in 1946, the Home Mission and Church Erection Society, the Foreign Missionary Society, and the Women's Missionary Association of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and the Missionary Society, Women's Missionary Society, and the Board of Church Extension of the Evangelical Church were united to form the Board of Missions of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The Women's Division acted independently from the Board. It did this through the Women's Council of the Women's Society of World Service. A convention was held every four years prior to the General Conference at which the Women's Council met and nominated council members who would have governing power between conventions. The nominees were presented to the General Conference for election to the Board of Missions.

When the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church merged in 1968, The Woman's Society of Christian Service and The Wesleyan Service Guild of the Methodist Church and the Women's Society of World Service of The Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the Women's Society of Christian Service and Wesleyan Service Guild. Administrative responsibility was assigned to the Women's Division of the Board of Missions. In 1972, the women's organizations in The United Methodist Church merged to form one inclusive organization called the United Methodist Women.