As Told by Bishop E. R. Hendrix at
the Dedication of the Martha S. Cupples Memorial Home
on May 20, 1896

Mrs. Martha S. Cupples was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Kells and was born in the City of St. Louis, May 20, 1830, on the south side of Washington Avenue, between Fifth and Sixth when the City numbered only about six thousand. She was married to Mr. Samuel Cupples December 15, 1860, and their lives and charities have been inseparable ever since. Even death itself has not deparated her from the carrying out, with the knowledge of her approval, those plans of beneficence which enlisted their best wisdom and liberality. Her life embraced within its limits the origin and development of every charitable institution in the City of St. Louis. Her heart rejoiced to see what was being done for the friendless and needy, to whom she was a wise and thoughtful friend and benefactor. With so devoit a mother, whose Godly life and conversation are a sacred memory in the annals of St. Louis Methodism, Mrs. Cupples could not have been otherwise than the sympathetic and lovin gchristian that she was without doing violence to the teachings and vows of her childhood. Mrs. Elizabeth Kells was such an incarnation of Christian graces and had by faith become such a partaker of the divine nature that she shed about her an atmosphere of holy joy and peace. She inspired love and great consideration which were shown her by both young and old. She deserves to be names with Barbara Heck and Adam Clark, as part of the contribution which Irish Protestantism has given to the Christian forces of American and Great Britain. Her brother, John Finney, who had been a member of one of the Methodist societies in Ireland, was one of the five established by Rev. Jesse Walker, in Missouri, in 1821. The following year Mrs. Kells and her brother, William Finney, were converted, and joined the Methodist Church at a camp meeting held by Rev. Jesse Walker, on the St. Charles Rock Road, some eleven miles from St. Louis. Then began that saintly life, keyed not to the temporal but to the eternal, which is so sacredly remembered by many persons who are here this evening.

In that atmosphere of faith and joy Mrs. Cupples' own religious life was developed. It was natural according to the laws of crace, that she should become a child of the covenant, with such a Godly mother to dedicate her to the Lord in hold baptism, and that as early as her ninth year she should show her recognition of the meaning of her baptismal vows. In the year of Mrs. Cupples' birth the old Fourth Street Church was dedicated and her early life was identified with its altars and services. In the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Avis, near the church, she was accustomed to meet with othr young Christians for religious instruction. In early womanhood she became a teacher in the Sunday School and soon showed a deep interest in both the spiritual and temporal welfare of the young.

Inheriting her mother's strong practical sense, it was nutural that she should become actively and wisely engaged in Christian work. Even before she took an active part in the work of the Orphans' Home she had become deeply interested in behalf of the Girls' Industrial Home. For twenty-nine years the Secretary of its Board of Managers, she was ever found among its wisest counsellors and most zealous and liberal patrons. Her best though was given with her means, so that many young girls thus befriended became self-supporting. The work of this noble institution supplemented the tender care of the orphans, and these twin charities enlisted her mind and heart to the utmost. Her interest was great in the work of the Memorial Home for the Aged, and, also of the Christian Home for Single Women, but her affection never abated for the Orphans' Home and the Girls' Indutrial Home, with whose management she was so long identified.

Nor was it to the children as a body that she gave her thought and love, it was to them as individuals. The childless mother found her joy in the motherless child who represented to her, her own Belle and Clara and Lillie. The intuitions of the orphaned children noted the genuineness of her love and returned it. They were ever sure of her smiles and caress. Had they not also seen her eyes dim with tear as she ministered to them and though of her Lord who now ministered to her own? They wept as for a mother when she died. It was the flowers which their loving hands had brought which were placed in her casket and upon her heart. Nor can any anniversary of her birth come when the hand of the orphans whom she loved will not place flowers about her portrait or her tomb.