I will miss this amazingly beautiful woman.
Martha Louise Niendorff Gilmore: First female Southern Baptist minister in city
07:55 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Rev. Martha Louise Niendorff Gilmore had a long, pioneering ministry that covered everything from teaching pregnant high school students to being a chaplain to prisoners and patients.
In 1977, she was one of the first women ordained into the ministry of a Southern Baptist church in Texas. She also had been a professor to many seminary students at Southern Methodist University.
Ms. Gilmore, 71, died Sunday of complications of ovarian cancer at her Dallas home. For the past nine years, she belonged to an ovarian cancer survivors group whose members considered her a role model.
"She always had a compassion for working with people in trouble, and she wanted to be in counseling," said her husband, Jerry Gilmore of Dallas.
Born in El Paso, Ms. Gilmore grew up in Dallas, where she graduated from Sunset High School in 1953. She received her bachelor's degree from Baylor University in 1957.
In December 1956, she married Mr. Gilmore, who went on to be a Dallas lawyer, two-term Dallas City Council member and longtime Dallas County Community College District trustee and two-time chairman.
Ms. Gilmore taught fourth and fifth grades at William B. Miller Elementary School in Dallas for two years before she started raising her three children.
In 1971, she returned to the classroom to participate in a Dallas pilot program to provide continuing education for pregnant girls. At the time, pregnant students were placed in separate classes, her husband said.
She became a teacher at the Dallas County Jail and felt "a sense of call" for women as chaplains.
Ms. Gilmore wanted credentials that would authorize her to help people solve their problems. She debated career paths and chose the ministry, her husband said.
In 1973, she enrolled in the Perkins School of Theology "because people are spiritual, I knew I couldn't counsel without spiritual dynamics," she recalled in 1977.
"The seminary was the ideal place for her to be," her husband said.
Ms. Gilmore served as a Methodist Hospital chaplain while she was a Perkins student. At the Oak Cliff hospital, Ms. Gilmore visited regularly with patients who were fellow members of Cliff Temple Baptist Church.
In 1977, Ms. Gilmore was the first woman in Dallas and the fourth in Texas to be ordained by a Southern Baptist church. She had asked Cliff Temple leaders to ordain her so that she could serve as jail and hospital chaplain.
But Ms. Gilmore was frustrated by Baptist leadership.
"When she was ordained as a Baptist, she never really had any job as a Baptist," her husband said.
In 1984, she transferred her orders to the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.
She served on the ministerial staffs of Highland Park United Methodist Church and Kessler Park United Methodist Church for three years each but soon found herself back on the SMU campus, mentoring future ministers.
"Her real time in ministry was instructing, leading, teaching and coaching interns," her husband said. "She started out at Perkins, and she came back to Perkins."
While she helped many students find their calling, she helped at least one pupil steer clear of the wrong vocation.
"She had one student who was just a terrible student," her husband said. "He was a good guy, a terrible student."
Ms. Gilmore flunked the student, who had relatives who were prominent within the Methodist Church. The relatives appealed to Perkins' dean, who upheld Ms. Gilmore's decision at a meeting with both sides.
After the meeting, the relatives stormed out. As the student left, he turned at the door and mouthed "thank you" to Ms. Gilmore, Mr. Gilmore said.
"She strongly believed ... that the pastor had such an absolutely essential role in forming and shaping peoples' spiritual lives," her husband said. "She did not accept any concept that that pastor ought to be any less than the best."
Ms. Gilmore retired in 2001.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at the First United Methodist Church in Dallas. A reception will follow the memorial.
Ms. Gilmore was a longtime supporter of the charitable needs of women and girls. She had served on the boards of Children's Inc. and the Girls Foundation of Dallas. She was a volunteer at the First United Methodist Church's Crossroads Community Services, an urban outreach program.
She received the Oak Cliff Lions Club's Humanitarian Award in 2001.
In addition to her husband, Ms. Gilmore is survived by two sons, Daniel Bailey Gilmore of Nashville and Charles Alan Gilmore of Winnsboro, Texas; a daughter, Susan Louise Gilmore Moore of McKinney; and seven grandchildren.
Memorials may be made to the Theology Intern Program at the Perkins School of Theology, the Crossroads Community Services at the First United Methodist Church or to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.
