Barbara Heck

BARBARA(Heck) born 1734 in the town of Ballingrane (Republic of Ireland), daughter of Bastian Ruckle Margaret Embury. Bastian Ruckle married Margaret Embury in Ballingrane, Republic of Ireland. The couple had seven kids from which just four survived to adulthood.

The subject of the biography is usually a person who has played an important role in the things that have left lasting effects on society or had innovative ideas or proposals which are subsequently documented in some method. Barbara Heck left neither letters nor statements. The only evidence we have for matters like the date of her marriage is from secondary sources. The primary documents that were used by Heck to describe the reasons behind her actions and motives were not available. She has nevertheless become heroized in the beginning of North American Methodism history. It is the task of the biographer to explain and define the myth that she has created in this instance, and to try to portray the actual person enshrined therein.

Abel Stevens, Methodist historian in 1866. The growth of Methodism within the United States has now indisputably put the names of Barbara Heck first on the women's list who have a place in the history of the church of the New World. Her reputation is more based on the weight of the cause she was involved in than on her private life. Barbara Heck was involved fortuitously at the time of the emergence of Methodism in the United States and Canada and her fame rests on the inherent nature of an extremely popular organization or movement to celebrate its origins in order to strengthen its traditionalism and connection to its past.