Born in 1875, Harriet became an Episcopal deaconess in 1922 after attending the New York Training School for Deaconesses. After becoming a deaconess, Harriet became a missionary among American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples. Harriet emphasized health and education rather than religious conversion in her work with indigenous peoples.
Harriet focused her efforts on education and also tended to the sick and the poor. She won the respect of the communities she ministered to (the Cheyenne in Oklahoma, Alaskan natives, and the Seminoles in Florida) by choosing not only to minister to them, but to live with them in their poverty. She did not enforce conversion to the Christian faith, but she did encourage it by her own example of Christ’s love. She earned the trust of many and was fondly referred to as “Bird Woman” by the Cheyenne. She died in 1969.