Barbara Heck

BARBARA HICK (Baby) Ruckle was born 1734 in Ballingrane, Ireland. She is the daughter of Margaret Embury and Bastian RUCKLE. Bastian Ruckle is the father of Margaret Embury and Bastian Ruckle was born in Ballingrane in 1734. She got married Paul Heck 1760 in Ireland. The couple had 7 children, of whom 4 survived into childhood.

The subject of the biographical piece is typically a person who has played the leading role in important historical events, or has come up with unique ideas or suggestions which have been recorded in written form. Barbara Heck, on the contrary, did not leave notes or written documents. The evidence of such details as the date she got married marriage is only secondary. There is no primary source that can be used to reconstruct Barbara Heck's motives and actions through the majority of her time. Nevertheless she has become an heroic figure in the early period of Methodism in North America. It is the task of the biographer to clarify the legend of this instance, and to try to portray the real person in the myth.

Abel Stevens, a Methodist historian in 1866, wrote about this. Barbara Heck is now unquestionably the first woman in the historical record of New World ecclesiastical women, due to the advances that was made through Methodism. It is more important to consider the magnitude of the record of Barbara Heck relative to the label she was given than the story of her lives. Barbara Heck was involved fortuitously in the genesis of Methodism in Canada and the United States and Canada and her fame lies in the inherent tendency of a highly successful movement or institution to celebrate its origins to enhance its perception of tradition and continuity with its past.