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Evangelist and Teacher of Ministers
Jessie Curtis was a reasonable person who could keep priorities in mind. She read the
papers, kept up with current events, and had her own library. She was constantly
collecting sermon material.
Mrs. Curtis faithfully attended church meetings and business sessions, such as the
Columbia Union Conference Session in Atlantic City in 1959, where she was
photographed in the center of a group of her members.
Mrs. Curtis and Mary Walsh were good friends, both licensed ministers. Jessie had
the privilege of meeting Ellen White in person.
There is an anecdote told by the family concerning an attempt to ordain Jessie Curtis
at which she apparently dissented. (From Vanetta Weiss and Janet and Charles McKeel,
interview with the author at the Drums, Pennsylvania, Seventh-day Adventist Church on July
27, 1985. See appendix A, 5.4.)
Jessie Weiss Curtis served as a licensed minister in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination from 1945 until 1972, more than 25 years. After retirement she continued to be
active in witnessing for her Lord. An illness finally slowed her down for the last year of
her life, and she died at Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, September 6, 1972. She lived
nearly 91 years, a unique blending of ministry, family love, and unfearing interaction
with the public. She died in the hope of the resurrection, desiring above all else to meet
her Lord at His return.
Mrs. Curtis left the world quite different from the way she found it. Her obituary states
that “She held tent meetings and organized many churches in the East Pennsylvania
Conference.” (From “Curtis, Jessie W.,” Review and Herald, November 2, 1972).
Toward the end of her life Mrs. Curtis said that if she had her life to live over, she
would do exactly the same work that she had done. What bigger thrill could there be
than teaching people the Bible, bringing them to their Lord, and seeing them baptized
and saved in the kingdom?

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