First Native American Woman to be Received into Full Connection in The United Methodist Church.
Lois V. Glory-Neal was born July 22, 1931, in Tahleguah, Oklahoma, capital of the Cherokee Nation.
“In 1979, I received this most ‘sacred, intimate call’ to the ordained ministry. I realized that fulfilling this call included four years of college and then seminary. . . . I was bold enough to enter Oklahoma City University, a private United Methodist college, at age fifty. After raising seven children and serving with my late husband, Reverend Oliver Neal, in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference for thirty years, I graduated from OCU with a BA degree in May 1984. That Fall, I entered Saint Paul School of theology – I was fifty-seven when I graduated. “
After servring on the reservation in Horton, Kansas, while attending seminary, whe was the first Native American women to receive full-conference membership and then serving after four years on the Kickapoo/Potowatomi reservation, Lois became the first Native American woman to serve as a district superintendent.