Mother Roper

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THE POWER OF FAITH
By Woodi Ishmael

August 30, 1964

Mrs. Janet Lord Roper was known to thousands of merchant seamen all over the world as Mother Roper. For 54 years, her life was dedicated to helping sailors of all races and creeds. . .

First, as a young girl, she taught Sunday Bible Class at The American Seamen's Friends Society in Boston. Later she married ths Rev. E. H. Roper and together they conducted a seamen's mission in Portland, Ore. When he died in 1915, she became house mother in the Seamen's Church Institute in New York. There she performed her greatest, service. During World War I she received a continuous stream of inquiries concerning missing seamen.She established the Missing Seamen's Bureau which met with such success that she continued it after the war. Lists of missing men were posted on the Institute's bulletin board and sent to all ports in the world. She checked each inquiry personally with her own enormous files as well as those of steamship companies and the Maritime Commission. Due to Mother Roper's tireless faith, over 12,000 missing men have been found.

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Janet Lord Roper