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Other Women Ministers from the Past
L. Flora (Mrs. Frank) Plummer: 1862-1945
Licensed minister 1893

Flora Plummer was a young married woman teaching high school in Nevada, Iowa,
when she attended evangelistic meetings conducted by A. G. Daniells in the year 1885.
The next year, after a spiritual struggle, she made her surrender to Christ and became a
Seventh-day Adventist. As befit her dynamic nature, she immediately became an ardent
worker for the church, mailing out literature and conducting Bible studies.
An active member of the Iowa Sabbath School Association, Flora Plummer became its
president in 1891. Four years later she was chosen to read a paper before the General
Sabbath School Council as it met in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Sab bath school work
was gaining momentum; with her enthusiasm for this ministry, Flora Plummer was on
the cutting edge.
Mrs. Plummer was elected secretary of the Iowa Conference in 1897. During part of
the year 1900 she served as acting president of the Iowa Conference when the president
left for California. This was a woman of no mean administrative ability. Later that year
she became Sabbath school secretary for the Minnesota Conference.
As a delegate at large, Flora Plummer attended the 1901 General Conference. There
the Sabbath school department of the General Conference was first organized, and Flora
Plummer became its correspondence secretary.
When her office moved in 1905 to Washington, D.C., Mrs. Plummer’s husband
obligingly moved his business to that area. Although Frank Plummer was not a Seventhday Adventist until the last few days of his life, this considerate man moved with his
wife, following her career.
In 1905 the Plummers adopted two children. Now Flora enjoyed her own family in
addition to her large Sabbath school family.
Mrs. Plummer became editor of the Sabbath School Worker in 1904 and carried that
responsibility, except for a few months, through all the years until her retirement in 1936.
As a result of her outstanding work as the correspondence secretary, in 1913 Mrs.
Plummer was elected secretary of the General Conference Sabbath school department,
equivalent to the modern post of departmental director. She held this position for 23 years.
Elder H. D. Singleton said concerning Flora Plummer, “She was powerful in her day.”
He recalled her use of cards, banners, and ribbons to achieve goals such as getting
people to Sabbath school on time. “During her reign,” Elder Singleton recalled, “the
Sabbath school was alive.” (From Elder H. D. Singleton, Wheaton, Maryland, telephone
conversation with the author, December 6, 1988.)
Mrs. Plummer conceived the Sabbath school as a soul winning agency. Herself a
teacher, she promoted the training of Sabbath school instructors.
Sabbath school giving for missions rose from nearly $22,000 a year in the first year of
her association with the General Conference Sabbath school department, 1901, to
$2,000,000 a year before the end of her directorship.

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