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John Emory Godbey, American Methodist preacher, teacher, editor, and author, was born August 11, 1839, in Casey County, Kentucky. He was educated in private schools. His education at St. Charles College, in St. Charles, Missouri, was interrupted by the Civil War. The college was seized by Union troops.

He joined the St. Louis Annual Conference in 1859. Godbey married Mary S. Halloway on November 2, 1865. She died in 1910. He then married Martha Virginia Dunnavant in 1911.

In 1867, while stationed in Washington, Missouri, Godbey opened a private high school, his first educational venture. After two years as presiding elder, he was appointed to First Methodist Episcopal Church, South and afterward to Cook Avenue Church, both in St. Louis.

While in St. Louis, Godbey played an important part in establishing the Southwestern Methodist in 1882. He was elected editor, and served in this post until it was combined with The St. Louis Christian Advocate in 1890. He was then appointed to the presiding eldership of the Kansas City District and served until 1894, when he was elected editor of The Arkansas Methodist in Little Rock. While editing that paper, he was sometime professor of philosophy at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. He served in these roles until 1905. He returned to the St. Louis Annual Conference in 1910 and was stationed in Kirkwood, Missouri. He died on February 29, 1932, at the age of 92.

Augustus Waldo Drury (1851-1935), Professor of Systematic Theology and Church History at Bonebrake Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, served as the denominational historian during his lifetime. He had a number of academic interests, most notably in theology, history, and later in his career he was interested in secularization, the local histories of Dayton, Ohio area, and William James. Drury is most well known for his biography on Otterbien as well as his three volume history of the United Brethren Church in Christ; Drury received high praise from his denomination for these works.

Drury was a husband and father and had an avid correspondence with a significant number of persons related to the United Brethren Church in Christ. He would regularly receive questions regarding lineage in families and church relations, as well as financial histories--such as a minister's salary at a particular church.

Bishop Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly (1920-2012) was born on March 5, 1920 in Washington, D.C., to the Reverend David DeWitt Turpeau and Ila Mashall Turpeau.

The Washington Annual Conference elected Matthew Clair a bishop, the second African American to be elected bishop. Bishop Clair baptized Leontine Turpeau that day.

According to family narratives, Bishop Clair stated on this day, "Oh, how I wish you were a boy so that my mantle might fall upon you." Sixty years later, it did.

Leontine Kelly's life is rooted in Methodism. Her father and brother were both Methodist ministers. Kelly attended West Virginia State College for three years, but left to marry Gloster Bryant Current in 194l after her junior year. They had three children together before their divorce in the early 1950s.

In 1956,Leontine Kelly married Methodist minister James Kelly. She returned to college and completed her B.A. in 1960 at Virginia Union University, and took a position as a social studies teacher. Though Kelly was a certified lay speaker, she did not become a pastor until the death of her husband in 1969, when she accepted an invitation from Galilee Church to be his successor. In 1976 she obtained her master's of divinity degree from Wesley Theological Seminary, thus becoming an ordained minister.

From 1977 to 1983, Kelly was pastor of Asbury-Church Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. In 1983 she became the assistant general secretary of evangelism for the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship in Nashville.

Kelly received her doctor of divinity degree in 1984 from the Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. In July 1984, Kelly and the Methodist Church made history when 64-year-old clergywomen was elected bishop of the California-Nevada Conference. Kelly thus became the first African American woman to be elected bishop, not only in the Methodist Church, but in any major denomination.

She also became the first woman to preach on the National Radio Pulpit, the first woman to serve as assistant general secretary of the Board of Discipleship's Evangelical Unit, and the only woman bishop to participate and be arrested in the Good Friday Livermore Weapons Laboratory protest in 1985. In 1956, Kelly became the first African American female bishop to address an international meeting of Methodists - the World Methodist Council in Nairobi.

Kelly retired in 1988 at the age of 68. She continued her work as a preacher, teacher, and social activist. Some of her numerous post- retirement activities include, serving as visiting professor of evangelism and witness for two years at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, and serving as adjunct professor at Pacific School of Religion and Hartford Seminary.

Continuing her social activism, Kelly became the president of the AIDS National Interfaith Network (ANIN) and president of the Interreligious Health Care ACCESS Campaign. On top of these numerous responsibilities Kelly maintained a full speaking and preaching schedule. Due to her active and historic service Kelly received more than ten honorary degrees, the Martin Luther King Drum Major for Justice award, the Grass Roots Leadership Award for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Ebony Magazine's Black Achievement Award in the area of religion. She was featured in Brian Lanker's book I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women who have Changed America, as well as in Diana Hayes' book , And Still We Rise. Kelly was her inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York in October 2000.

Dorothy A. Nyland (1905-2008), born on April 15, 1905 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Henry T. and Christine Nyland, was a staff member for the Women’s Society of Christian Service in multiple departments. Serving for fourteen years as the Secretary of Student Work for the Women’s Division of Christian Service of the Methodist Board of Missions, Nyland advocated for peace through her work in race relations and had a hand in developing Christian student leaders through her work with Christian youth. The Dorothy Nyland papers are comprised of writings, seminars, informational files, photographs, and correspondences.

Nyland worked for three years as a teacher for Cleveland Public Schools. In the 1930s, she began her work with the Methodist Church. From 1930 to 1936, holding the position of Director of Student Activities at the Wesley Foundation of the University of Oregon. From there, Nyland moved on to be the Director of Christian Education at the Cleveland Church Federation for six years. In 1943, she moved to Houston, Texas to be the Director of Christian Education at the First Methodist Church. In 1945, Nyland left Houston for New York City, to work as the Secretary of Student Work for the Women’s Division of Christian Service of the Methodist Board of Missions. After fourteen years at this position, she moved back to Cleveland, Ohio, to take care of her elderly parents in 1959 and took the position of Secretary of Promotion at the Women’s Guild Evangelical and Reformed Church. After three years there, in 1962, she left to become the Director of Christian Education at the Bethany Presbyterian Church. During her time in Cleveland, Nyland also worked as the Director of Christian Education at the Franklin Circle Christian Church. After almost two and a half years at Bethany Presbyterian Church, she left in 1965 to be the Director of Peace on Earth for the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Santa Barbara, California, for a year.

During her time working, Nyland made multiple trips to different countries. She took a three month trip to Asia during 1935, spent a summer in Europe in 1939, visited Mexico in 1942, and Puerto Rico in 1948, went on a sabbatical for three months in 1951 to travel around the world, and visited Latin America in 1969. While in Europe in 1951, Nyland was a leader at the First World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam, Holland. In 1957, she attended the World Student Christian Federation meeting in Bossey, Switzerland. Nyland spent a month in 1958 in the Soviet Union with a Peace Group and in 1966 she went on a Study Tour with a Methodist group to Czechoslovakia. Nyland was also a member of the district cabinet of the Epworth League in Cleveland, and director of the Epworth League and young people’s work in the Philadelphia Conference.

Throughout her life, Nyland advocated for peace through her pioneering work in race relations, and had a hand in developing Christian student leaders. She worked closely with Christian youth and traveled extensively around the world, visiting sixty-three countries, as well as all fifty states in the United States. Nyland was the author of multiple newspaper articles and pamphlets, as well as the program guide that accompanied the missionary education movement’s textbook, The Trumpet of the Prophecy by Richard Baker. She was known as the “Epistle Packing Mama” among students because she received extensive world-wide mail.

After retiring on April 15, 1969, she was chosen as the chairman of the Women’s Committee of the Cleveland Chapter of UNICEF. Nyland passed away on April 4, 2008, just eleven days shy of her 103rd birthday at Wesley Glen Retirement Community in Columbus, Ohio.