Grace and Edward Smith, 1936
- Containers:
- Box 1, Folder 5
- Scope and content:
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Letter from missionaries Grace and Edward Smith who were stationed in In-Tai (Foochow) China. The letter discusses politics and missionary work.
- Biographical / historical:
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The Smiths were a family of Congregational missionaries in China, 1901-1950, primarily in Ing Tai and Fuzhou (Foochow). Educated at Amherst College and Hartford Theological Seminary, Edward Huntington Smith devoted nearly 50 years of his life to running an orphanage, raising funds, and promoting Christian education in Ing Tai, Fujian (Fukien), China. His wife, Grace W. Thomas Smith, educated at Tabor Academy and Wheelock College, both in Massachusetts, served as a kindergarten teacher in the United States and China. Their daughter, Helen Huntington Smith, earned degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Union Theological Seminary, and Columbia University. Edward Huntington Smith, who led two generations of his family in service to China, was born at Franklin, Connecticut in 1873. His parents, Harriet H. and Owen S. Smith, came from a line of pious New England farmers. At the age of fifteen, Smith was baptized and received into the Second Congregational Church, Norwich, Connecticut. During his freshman year at Amherst College, Smith attended a Northfield Conference, where he became inspired by the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. After graduation in 1898, he spent several months with the YMCA in Cuba, helping American soldiers involved in the Spanish-American War. Later the same year, he joined the class of 1901 at Hartford Theological Seminary. After completion of his studies, Smith became ordained at the same Norwich church where his ancestors had worshiped for eight generations. In October, 1901, he married Grace W. Thomas, the daughter of a Methodist preacher. The couple sailed for Shanghai from San Francisco in November, 1901, and arrived at Ing Hok, Fujian (Fukien) Province, the next month. ("Ing Hok" is sometimes referred to as "Ing Tai", "Yung tai" and other variations.) Edward Huntington Smith devoted his life to this mountainous district, often traveling by foot to its farthest outposts, or by boat down the rapids. He spent nearly 50 years (1901-1950) running an orphanage, raising funds, and promoting Christian education. (This figure includes years of furlough, etc.) One of the highlights of Smith's career occurred in 1918 when he met Chiang Kai-shek, whose Nationalist Army was then engaged in fighting war lord Li Hou-chi of Fuzhou (Foochow). In 1946, although officially retired, Smith returned to Fuzhou (Foochow) at his own expense. After his expulsion in 1950, Smith spent much of his time writing on the subject of China, missions, his life and related matters. He died in 1968. Grace W. Thomas Smith, who married Edward Huntington Smith in 1901, was born in 1874 at Pine Brook, New Jersey. After graduating from Tabor Academy, Marion, Massachusetts in 1893, she joined the first class of Wheelock College, Boston, and taught at the Perkins Institute Kindergarten for the Blind in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts for eight years. Her work in China included substitute teaching at the Union Kindergarten Training School, and the establishment of a local kindergarten, in addition to raising the couple's own four children. At the time of her death in 1939 she was known as the "Mother of all Ingtai." (credit to: Smith Family Papers, RG 5, Yale Divinity Library).
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