Fillmore, Mary Caroline "Myrtle" Page(1845-1931)

Myrtle Fillmore, cofounder of the Unity School of Christianity, was born Mary Caroline Page on August 6, 1845, in Page-town, Ohio. She was raised in a devout Methodist family and given the best education available for females in her day. She attended Oberlin College and upon graduation moved to Clinton, Missouri, to become a schoolteacher.

In the 1870s she moved to Dennison, Texas, where she met her future husband, Charles Fillmore. They were married in 1881 and settled in Colorado, where Charles had previously moved. They moved to Kansas City in 1884, but Myrtle's life entered a downward spiral. She had tuberculosis, at the time an incurable wasting disease. However, in 1886 she attended some lectures given by an independent Christian Science teacher, E. B. Weeks of Chicago. Charles attended reluctantly, but Myrtle's life was changed by what she heard. She began to apply the teachings and over the next year was cured of her illness. Her recovery captured Charles's imagination and enthusiasm. While Myrtle was sharing with others the teachings to which she attributed her healing, Charles was studying. In 1889 he began a magazine that presented Christian Science in the context of his various interests in the occult and Eastern religions.

Soon after founding the magazine, Myrtle and Charles met Emma Curtis Hopkins, the independent Christian Science teacher, and became her students. Under her tutelage, they focused their work in healing. In 1891 they were ordained by Hopkins and decided to organize their work under the general name Unity. By this time the Fillmores had three children, Lowell (1882), Rickert (1884), and Royal (1889). Myrtle founded the Unity Sunday School and in 1893 launched and for over thirty years edited Wee Wisdom, a children's magazine published for almost a century by the movement. She took the lead in the formation of the Society of Silent Help, today known as Silent Unity, the movement's prayer ministry. In 1903 she cofounded with Charles the Unity School of Christianity, the central organization of the movement. She lived to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary and passed away on October 3, 1931.

Sources:

Fillmore, Myrtle. How to Let God Help You. Lee's Summit, Mo.: Unity School of Christianity, 1956.

——. The Letters of Myrtle Fillmore. Kansas City, Mo.: Unity School of Christianity, 1936.

Witherspoon, Thomas E. Myrtle Fillmore, Mother of Unity. Unity Village, Mo.: Unity Books, 1977.