Malinda Cramer

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Malinda Elliott Cramer (June 12, 1844 – August 2, 1906) was a founder of the Church of Divine Science, a faith healer, and an important early figure in the New Thought movement. She was born in Greensboro, Indiana, the daughter of Obediah and Mary Elliott. Seeking relief from a long illness, she moved to San Francisco in 1872, where she married photographer Charles L. Cramer. Her health problems continued, but in 1885 she describes a spiritual revelation during deep prayer that she called a realization of the oneness of Life. She soon recovered and began practicing faith healing in 1887.

In 1888 she launched Harmony, a monthly journal, and that same year she and her husband opened what would become the Home College of Divine Science. The term “Divine Science” had been used earlier by Mary Baker Eddy and by Wilberforce Colville. In 1892 Cramer founded the International Divine Science Association, an early network that helped connect New Thought centers. In 1893 she helped open a second Divine Science College in Oakland and undertook missionary trips across the country. Between 1893 and 1898 she trained Nona L. Brooks and ordained her as a minister in the Church of Divine Science on December 1, 1898. Brooks, with sisters Fannie Brooks James and Alethea Brooks Small, later helped form a Denver church that became a central home church for the movement.

Cramer died on August 2, 1906, in San Francisco, from tuberculosis linked to the aftermath of the Great San Francisco Earthquake.