17. Carrie Barge Cottage

For the first 65 years of Lakeside, the women of the Methodist Episcopal Church led the denomination in missionary work caring for the needs of people both in foreign lands and in the United States. Two organizations, the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) and the Woman’s Home Missionary Society (WHMS) brought hundreds of women and men to Lakeside to hear missionary stories and learn how they too could make a difference in the world.

On this site has stood two cottages, the first built by the WFMS with the financial assistance of Lakesider and missionary philanthropist Fanny Nast Gamble. In 1920 the cottage was sold to the WHMS. They rebuilt and enlarged the cottage and used it to house women missionaries and deaconesses attending the summer schools of mission.

An early influential figure in the WHMS was Carrie Barge.  Born in 1868 in rural Coshocton County, Ohio, Carrie graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, then called “the West Point of Missionaries.”  Carrie began her career as an organizer of mission education projects for the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.  A special ambassador of student life, she visited colleges across the country to encourage missionary life among students. She became the National Secretary of Field Work and later, a national trustee.  The cottage was named in her honor after her death in 1934, in recognition of her frequent and beloved Lakeside speaking engagements.  The cottage’s ownership later passed to the First United Methodist Church in Cleveland.  In the 1980’s, it was sold to a private owner and then in the early 2000’s it was sold to the Lakeside Association.