The Strain of Other Blood

The Strain of Other Blood, Patricia Allen. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883544) 2026.

Summary: Ruth Elaine Younger: excluded because of race from Episcopal order in the US later returns to establish an order.

“We don’t have nuns” intoned the Episcopalian guide. And yet they do. This is the biography of a strong-minded and -willed woman who founded an order of Episcopal nuns in New York City that continues to this day. She broke racial boundaries and yet often kept her race a secret. She cultivated relationships with the rich and famous including Madeleine L’Engle yet struggled with conflict with parents, board members and other sisters.

Ruth Elaine Younger grew up in an impoverished Harlem light-skinned Black family. She felt a call to an Episcopal religious order but was rejected because of “the strain of other blood.” Rejected in the United States, she was admitted as a postulant of the Sisters of St. John the Divine in Toronto. After early years of teaching on the Canadian prairie, she campaigned to establish the order in an urban U.S. setting, often running afoul of her superiors. Eventually, this led to her separation from the order.

Back in the U.S., she cultivated the support of Canon West and Bishop Donegan to form the Community of the Holy Spirit, setting up a convent at 621 W. 113th Street in New York, with a school nearby. The school quickly became known for its multi-racial staff and academic excellence. It drew families attracted to the high standards. But there were also challenges to Mother Ruth’s handling of finances and leadership of the school.

Beyond this, while those on the inside knew Mother Ruth was Black, this was often kept quiet. Mother Ruth used facial powder to further lighten her skin. She fought her family, who threatened to expose her identity. Patricia Allen teases out these conflicting strains in her biography. Also, Allen describes a woman who could sensitively recruit postulants but could be demanding and controlling. Finally, she traces Mother Ruth’s last years as she sought to hold onto control while declining in her effectiveness.

The portrait Allen gives us is of a determined Black woman whose persistence brought an order to life. Yet her strengths also were her weaknesses and one senses that most people feared and respected her more than loved her. One wonders if that’s just what it took to cross the boundaries she crossed. One also wonders at the psychic toll of “passing” as white. Patricia Allen has given us a biography of both a singular religious leader, and a complicated woman.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.