John Horton Daniels and Helen (Dunn) Daniels papers, 1919 -- 1959

John Horton Daniels was born on September 22, 1891 in Minneapolis, MN, the son of Frank Birchard Daniels and Florence Louisa Farrington. He graduated with a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1914 and entered the medical school that fall, but transferred to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1916, receiving his M.D. in 1918. Helen Dunn was born on May 11 1892 in Minneapolis to Frederic Earle and Harriet Augusta (Lewis) Dunn. She received her B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1915, and was involved with the YMCA at the University of Wisconsin. She and John Horton were married on August 14, 1919, and later that year went to China as missionaries under the auspices of the Presbyterian General Board of Foreign Missions. The two initially studied at the Language School at the University of Nanking, and John Horton worked as a member of the medical staff of the University Hospital. During the 1927 "Nanking Incident," when troops of the National Revolutionary Army assaulted the warlord armies controlling Nanjing, the couple had to flee to the safety of an American gunboat. They were eventually brought home to Minneapolis where Helen gave birth to their first child, John Horton. The elder John Horton worked at the Student Health Service at the University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1930, after which the family returned to Nanjing. He was appointed head of the University Hospital, while Helen researched a history and guidebook for the city, which was never published. The family was on furlough during the Nanjing Massacre of December 1937, but returned to the city in August 1938 and remained for three years. In January 1941, the growing military threat from Japan prompted most of the family to return to Minneapolis while John Horton remained in Nanjing. In the fall of that year Helen became ill and John Horton intended to return to her, but was en route in Manila when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was interned as a civilian by the Japanese military, and managed to do some work as a physician in the camp. He was eventually released in 1943 as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States. After the end of the war, the couple returned to Nanjing to resume their work, but nearly a decade of conflict had drained the resources of the hospital. After working for one year under the new People's Republic of China, the couple returned home in 1950. John Horton served as director of the Associated Mission Medical Office of the National Council of Churches' Division of Foreign Missions, part of the NCCCUSA. He retired in 1960 and died in Los Angeles in 1974. Helen died in Los Angeles in 1978.