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Post, Lucy Belinda (1845–1937)

By Silvia C. Scholtus

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Silvia C. Scholtus

First Published: January 28, 2020

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Lucy Belinda Post, a missionary from North American, was the first Bible instructor in South America and did pioneering work in Uruguay and Argentina in her mature years.

Early Years, Preparing and Service in the United States

Lucy Belinda Post was born in Wisconsin, United States, on September 19, 1845.1 Her parents were Joshua and Emeline Post, European immigrants settled in the United States, who had fourteen children while living in Ohio. Lucy Post was the eleventh daughter. She graduated as a teacher and taught for several years in public schools.2

In 1880 she learned about Adventist beliefs by the influence of her brother Ezra, who had become an Adventist. She was then 35 years old. After her baptism, she prepared to be a Bible instructor at a Christian school in Chicago. She assisted in several evangelistic campaigns in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Ohio. She was elected as a delegate to the 1891 General Conference Session in Battle Creek.3

Four years later, she attended a session of the General Conference again and volunteered to go to South America. That was how she became the first missionary resident in Uruguay by vote of the Tract and Missionary Society of the General Conference and she was granted a missionary license when she was almost fifty years old.4

In Uruguay and Argentina

Lucy Post sailed from New York in June 1895 and traveled with Pastor Elwin W. Snyder (1865-1919) and his wife Estelle J. Katering. They arrived in Argentina in July. Post arrived in Nueva Palmira, Uruguay on July 26, 1895 and spent some time with her brother Zina’s family.5 She kept the first Sabbath by herself on July 27, 1895, as there were no other Adventists in Uruguay. She began studying the Bible with her relatives. On the third Saturday, August 10, two women joined her to praise God, and a third one joined the following week. By the testimony of Lucy Post, her sister-in-law Sarah Hoskens de Post and two of her nieces, Estela and Luisa, accepted the Adventist message and became the first Adventists in Uruguay.6

Lucy Post also visited the neighbors. Five weeks later, on August 31, 1895, the group had increased to 12 people and Lucy organized the first Sabbath School in that country.7 While the first church in Uruguay was being organized in Nueva Helvecia, there were already Seventh-day Adventists in Nueva Palmira as a result of Lucy Post's work.8 Some months later, still in 1895, a general meeting took place at the Adventist mission in Buenos Aires. It was the first of its kind in Argentina and South America.9 On that occasion, eight people from Nueva Palmira were baptized, the first fruits of Lucy Post's work in South America. Two of them were members of her family.

After two years in Uruguay, she worked in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a Bible instructor for six years, mainly visiting English-speaking people. In Buenos Aires she joined the missionaries who lived there: the Westphals, the Towns, the McCarthys and the Ole Oppegards. All of them lived in a rented house.10 She also worked as a Sabbath School teacher in English among the Adventists who lived in Buenos Aires. At the end of 1897 a recent believer, Lydia Greene, recalls Lucy Post working as secretary of that English Sabbath School group.11

Lucy's tasks were varied. She visited the sick going from bed to bed in the hospital, accompanied by Sadie Graham de Town; she helped the poor by requesting clothes from the wealthiest sectors of the city; she also taught cooking and gave simple health treatments, distributed Christian literature, and gave Bible studies.12

Final years in the United States

In 1903, she returned to the United States and settled in Idaho. She acquired 395 acres (160 hectares) of land to live and work as a missionary. At least forty people came to the Adventist Church through her efforts. She spent the last nine years of her life with the Barclay couple. She died on February 4, 1937, in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 92.13

Lucy was always interested in the progress of God's cause and in the spread of the gospel of Christ. She was happy to have been able to dedicate her best years as a witness for the Lord wherever she was called to be. That is how she expressed her wishes:

My prayer is that every Bible truth for this time can shine in my own heart so that I can be able to give it out in all its purity to others. I can say that I have never enjoyed any other task in my life more than when I was in South America and I have never felt so much the presence of God.14

Sources

Gay, H. R. “Post.” North Pacific Union Gleaner 32, nº 14, April 6, 1937.

Kennedy, Frances M. “Life Sketch of Lucy B. Post.” Unpublished manuscript.

“Misión del Plata” [Plate Mission]. El Faro [The Lighthouse], year 4, nº 5, November 1900.

Post, Lucy. “Nueva Palmyra, Uruguay.” ARH, December 10, 1895.

Post of Everist, Luisa. “La Escuela Sabática” [Sabbath School]. La Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], year 16, nº 3-4, March-April 1916.

The General Conference Bulletin 1, nº 18 extra. March 3, 1895.

The General Conference Bulletin 1, nº 20 extra. March 5, 1895.

Thurston, W. H. “Brazil.” ARH, December 3, 1895.

Viera, Juan Carlos. “Los Adventistas del Séptimo día en América Latina: sus comienzos, su crecimiento, sus desafíos” [Seventh-day Adventists in Latin America: Their Beginnings, Their Growth, Their Challenges], (Tesis de doctorado en Ministerio [Doctoral thesis in Ministry], Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadera, California, 1993.

Vuilleumier, Jean. “Argentina.” ARH, April 14, 1896.

Walton, John Brown. “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America.” 4 Vols. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, California, 1953.

Wearner, Robert G. “Lucy Post: Pioneer Pillar in Adventist Missions.” ARH, March 3, 1988.

Westphal, Mary T. “Buenos Ayres.” ARH, March 24, 1896.

Notes

  1. Was a direct descendant of Stephen Post, who arrived from England to Boston, United States, in 1634, shortly after the Bay colony in Massachusetts began. H. R. Gay, “Post,” North Pacific Union Gleaner 32, nº 14, April 6, 1937, 7.↩

  2. Frances M. Kennedy (Lucy’s niece), “Life Sketch of Lucy B. Post,” unpublished manuscript and its necrology by Gay, “Post,” 7.↩

  3. Robert G. Wearner, “Lucy Post: Pioneer Pillar in Adventist Missions,” ARH, March 3, 1988, 19-20.↩

  4. The General Conference Bulletin 1, nº 18 extra, March 3, 1895, 446; The General Conference Bulletin 1, nº 20 extra, March 5, 1895, 486.↩

  5. Lucy Post, “Nueva Palmyra, Uruguay,” ARH, December 10, 1895, 796.↩

  6. W. H. Thurston, “Brazil,” ARH, December 3, 1895, 779.↩

  7. Luisa Post de Everist, “La Escuela Sabática” [The Sabbath School], La Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], year 16, nº 3-4, March-April 1916, 24; Juan Carlos Viera, “Los Adventistas del Séptimo día en América Latina: sus comienzos, su crecimiento, sus desafíos” [Seventh-day Adventists in Latin America: Their Beginnings, Their Growth, Their Challenges], (Tesis de doctorado en Ministerio, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadera, California, 1993) [Doctoral thesis in Ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadera, California], 146.↩

  8. John Brown Walton, “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America,” 4 vols. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1953), 1:101; “Misión del Plata” [Plate Mission], El Faro [The Lighthouse], year 4, nº 5, November 1900.↩

  9. Mary T. Westphal, “Buenos Ayres,” ARH, March 24, 1896, 187-188.↩

  10. Jean Vuilleumier, “Argentina,” ARH, April 14, 1896, 236; Wearner, “Lucy Post: Pioneer Pillar in Adventist Missions,” 19-20.↩

  11. Brown, “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America,” 1:88.↩

  12. Post, “Nueva Palmyra, Uruguay,” 796; Jean Vuilleumier, “Argentina,” ARH 73, nº 15, April 14, 1896, 236; Westphal, “Buenos Ayres,” 187-188.↩

  13. Brown, “A Historical Study of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Austral South America,” 1:101-102; Gay, “Post,” 7.↩

  14. Gay, “Post,” 7.↩

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Scholtus, Silvia C. "Post, Lucy Belinda (1845–1937)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. January 28, 2020. Accessed January 16, 2025. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=4GN1.

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Scholtus, Silvia C. "Post, Lucy Belinda (1845–1937)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. January 28, 2020. Date of access January 16, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=4GN1.

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Scholtus, Silvia C. (2020, January 28). Post, Lucy Belinda (1845–1937). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved January 16, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=4GN1.

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