Constance Runcie

Constance Owen FauntleRoy was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, January 15, 1836, the daughter of Robert Henry Fauntleroy, a Virginian of French Huguenot ancestry, associated with the United States Coast Survey, and Jane Dale Owen, daughter of the British manufacturer and philanthropist Robert Owen (1771-1858). The lives of Robert Owen's descendants were much influenced by his example.

Robert Owen was born at Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales, in 1771. He was a precocious child, completing his local education at the age of nine. He was put to work in a draper's shop in London and became familiar with cloth. When he was nineteen he heard that the leading cotton-spinning business in Manchester had lost its superintendent so he applied for the job. He was employed and in the next few years, by his intelligence and energy, made a great success. During a visit to Glasgow he met Miss Caroline Dale, daughter of David Dale, proprietor of the New Lanark mills. Owen induced his partners to purchase the New Lanark mills and after his marriage to Caroline in 1800 he settled in Scotland as manager and part owner of the mills. About two thousand people were employed of whom five hundred were children, usually recruited at ages five or six from the poor houses and charities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The living standards of the employees were deplorable and Owen made great progress in lifting them. He improved their houses and by his personal example he trained them in habits of order, cleanliness, and thrift. The sale of alcohol was placed under the strictest supervision, and great attention was devoted to the education of the young. Owen's partners felt that these moves were too expensive but the mills continued to be a great commercial success.

Owen had never been a believer in the prevailing form of religion and out of his experience he developed a creed for himself which he considered an entirely new and original discovery. He believed that man was made by his environment and that for the right formation of character the individual should be placed under the proper influences-physical, moral, and social-from his earliest years. Owen's prominence and success brought national and European influence. Statesmen and social reformers visited him at New Lanark, including Nicholas, later Emperor of Russia. The Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, was a close friend of Owen's and it is believed that Owen loaned him money which was later repaid to Owen's family by the Queen.

Owen was determined to put his theories to the full test, so in 1826 he purchased thirty thousand acres of land at New Harmony, in southwest Indiana, for $150,000 and started a self-supporting Community. He brought with him to America his four sons and one of his daughters, Jane Dale Owen. The experiment was a failure and Robert Owen returned to London in 1828. He died at his childhood home at Newtown, Wales, in 1858.

The four sons of Robert Owen became American citizens, and one of them, Robert Dale Owen, was a member of Congress, and from 1853 to 1858 U.S. minister to the Kingdom of Naples. He was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln and an early exponent of women's rights. Jane Dale Owen married Robert Henry Fauntleroy in 1835. They had two sons and two daughters. Ellinor married Professor George Davidson of the U.S. Coast Survey in 1858 and Constance married Dr. James Runcie in 1861.

Constance, like her grandfather, was precocious. She composed music when she was seven, wrote verse at eleven, and stories at twelve. When she was fourteen, her father died. Two years later she was taken abroad by her mother and was educated in Europe. They lived in Stuttgart, Germany, for five years and visited Robert Dale Owen at the Court of Naples. Constance studied music, drawing, and dancing. She was much interested in scientific studies and became fluent in several languages. She also experienced religious conversion and when they returned to New Harmony she taught a Sunday School class of 125 children.

In 1859, when Constance was twenty-three years old, she started “The Minerva Society, the first woman's club in America, with thirteen charter members. The motto of the society was 'Wisdom is the Crown of Glory. They met every Monday evening at the home of one of the members in rotation. Original poems and stories were read and debates were held.

A young Episcopal clergyman had arrived in New Harmony sent to build a church there. James Runcie was born in 1821 at Ardee, County Louth, Ireland. He completed his education at Trinity College, Dublin, and came to America in 1851 to study for the Episcopal ministry. In 1861 he and Constance Fauntleroy were married. He was then sent to Madison, Indiana, for ten years. During that time, in 1867, Constance organized the "Bronte Club, similar to the Minerva Society in New Harmony.

In 1871. Dr. Runcie was called to Christ Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. The church was a frame structure on the northeast corner of Seventh and Francis Streets, facing Francis, and the family lived just to the north of the church. On December 24, 1876, the church was destroyed by fire. Services were held for the next year at the little stone chapel on Felix Street between Seventh and Eighth, standing until 1975. The present Christ Church was built of brick under Dr. Runcie's direction. Dr. Runcie was highly regarded and could have been bishop of Indiana or bishop of Missouri, but he rejected both offers. He died on May 12, 1889. The press reported: The Church will feel deeply the loss of so able, illustrious, and devoted a servant, and the City sustains the loss of a citizen of rare faithfulness and uprightness.

Constance Runcie then built the house on the northwest corner of Seventeenth and Faraon Streets. The first floor was one large room, admirably suited for meetings. It was evidently designed in anticipation of her organization of "The Runcie Club in 1894. This club for women held its educational programs in her home until her death on May 17, 1911. She had been elected an honorary vice-president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs of the United States. Dr. and Mrs. Runcie had four children, two sons and two daughters. Three of them never married: Percy, James, and Ellinor Dale, who was a teacher at Miss West's School for Girls in St. Joseph, and The Barstow School in Kansas City. She was an accomplished musician and composer, setting to music the words of Eugene Field's poem 'Lovers' Lane, Saint Jo. Constance Blessing Runcie, the older daughter, married William St. John Elliot Marshall, Jr., who was mayor of St. Joseph I 914-1918, and 1920-1922. They had two children: Elliot Marshall III who married Margaret Maude Wyeth, and Jean Dale Savage-Story. She had a son, Benjamin Sprague Story and a daughter, Constance Fauntleroy Savage who married Lewis Burnes Wheeler of Santa Barbara, California.