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Armerding, Hudson T.

 Person

Biographical Statement

Hudson Taylor Armerding was born to Carl and Eva Mae Taylor Armerding in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 21, 1918. He and his three younger sisters were raised in Albuquerque, Dallas, and San Diego. During Hudson’s childhood, his father served Native American communities and was an itinerant preacher in the American Southwest.

In 1937, he began his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College, graduating in 1941 with a degree in history. Fellow students regarded him as an outstanding scholar and campus leader. Hudson went on to earn a master's degree in International Affairs from Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1942. The day before graduation, he was sworn into the United States Navy.

For three years during World War II, Armerding served on the USS Wichita, a heavy cruiser in the Pacific Theater. This experience shaped him; his awareness of God’s guidance and protection endured throughout his life.

The Wichita participated in 11 naval engagements, including the invasion of Okinawa. During his service in the Pacific, Armerding was promoted to Senior Grade Lieutenant. After Japan surrendered in August 1945, Armerding and his unit liberated a prisoner of war camp south of Nagasaki.

While serving in the Navy, Armerding spent time on leave in Wheaton, Illinois, with his parents. His father was then serving on the advisory board of the Central American Mission and was on the Bible faculty at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

On these visits home, Hudson courted Miriam Lucille Bailey, a 1942 Wheaton graduate and faculty member of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. Miriam was celebrated for her exquisite voice and had opera training in New York City. The two corresponded while Armerding was in the Navy. They were married on December 26, 1944 while he was on a short leave from the Wichita.

After the war, he returned home to his wife and attended the University of Chicago, earning a Ph.D. in history in 1948.

After graduating from the University of Chicago, Dr. and Mrs. Armerding resolved to serve as missionaries in China. The couple, already the parents of two young children, moved to Boston to study Chinese at Harvard University. The Armerdings’ plan, however, was blocked when in October 1949 the People’s Republic of China was established, and the Armerdings’ sponsoring mission withdrew staff from the newly Communist country.

When he heard of the Armerdings’ obstructed plans, the president of nearby Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts invited both Dr. and Mrs. Armerding to join Gordon’s faculty. Dr. Armerding joined the history faculty; his wife became a music professor there.

While at Gordon College, Dr. Armerding joined the Naval Reserve, retiring in 1966 at the rank of Commander.

After a semester of teaching at Gordon, Dr. Armerding was asked to serve as acting dean of the college – an appointment that soon became permanent. For a time, he served as acting president of the college as well.

While he was acting president, Dr. Armerding met then Wheaton College president, Dr. V. Raymond Edman. Dr. Edman asked Dr. Armerding to return to Wheaton to join the history faculty.

About a year after accepting the position at Wheaton, Dr. Armerding was asked to become the College’s first provost. Two years later, he was inaugurated as Wheaton’s fifth president, serving from 1965-1982.

During his tenure as president, Dr. Armerding established the Faith and Learning Seminar, in which Wheaton faculty continue to participate to this day. Faculty members from that era remember an intellectually rigorous president who grew the College’s enrollment.

During the difficult years of the Vietnam War, Dr. Armerding wrestled with the challenges of leading a college community. He worked, despite his military background, to accept with grace those students who protested the war.

During his tenure, a new library, science building, and the Billy Graham Center were constructed on Wheaton College’s campus.

An ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, Dr. Armerding wrote countless sermons, commencement addresses, and articles during his tenure at Wheaton and throughout the course of his life. He authored A Word to the Wise (Tyndale House Publishers, 1980), The Heart of Godly Leadership (Crossway Books, 1992), and The Hand of God (Wheaton College, 2004).

Dr. Armerding served as the President of National Association of Evangelicals (1970-72) and President of the World Evangelical Fellowship. He was Director of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities; Chairman of the Board, Columbia International University; and Executive Committee member, Christian College Consortium. He also served on the U.S. Council of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship and was on the Board of the Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1997, the National Association of Evangelicals presented Dr. Armerding with the J. Elwin Wright Award for his contributions to “evangelical cooperation through international and national efforts.”

In 1985, Dr. Armerding was diagnosed with lymphoma. After multiple treatments his cancer went into remission, and for the last 18 years of his life, Dr. Armerding remained cancer-free.

From 1985-1999, Dr. Armerding served as the vice president of the Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community in Pennsylvania, where he and Miriam Armerding resided. He was counselor in residence there until 2006, when he moved to Windsor Park Manor Retirement Community in Carol Stream, Illinois. Hudson T. Armerding died on December 1, 2009 and was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Miriam Bailey Armerding, on July 1, 2006.

Dr. Armerding was survived by his five children, Carreen Smith ’68; Hudson Taylor II ’70; Paul ’75; Miriam Swisher ’76; and Jonathan ’79; as well as 18 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.

Found in 5 Collections and/or Records:

Collection 105 Oral History Interview with Paul D. Votaw

 Collection
Identifier: CN 105
Scope and Contents Oral history interview with Paul Dean Votaw (1917-2007) in which he describes his childhood; education at Wheaton College, Dallas Seminary, and Princeton Seminary; and missionary activities in Syria and Lebanon. The time period covered by the interview is roughly 1917-1954.Reverend Paul Votaw was interviewed by Robert Shuster on March 4, 1980, at the Graham Center offices in Wheaton. The first ten minutes of the interview are barely decipherable due to technical difficulties. The...
Dates: Created: 1980

Collection 111 Papers of Charles H. Troutman, Jr.

 Collection
Identifier: CN 111
Scope and Contents Correspondence, minutes, reports, manuals, and other records documenting Charles Troutman's career in Christian ministry among university students, first with Inter-Varsity in the United States and Australia and then with Latin America Mission. This collection also contains a great deal of information on evangelical Christianity in the United States, Australia and Latin America; Troutman's letters from his service in the Pacific in World War II; and reports and other information relative to...
Dates: Created: 1924-1992

Collection 284 Oral History Interview with Gladys Wright

 Collection
Identifier: CN 284
Scope and Contents Oral history interviews with Gladys Lyle Wright (1902-1994), in which she discusses her work as a teacher in Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo). Topics discussed include: Wright's family background, education at Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute, her work as a missionary in the Belgian Congo for the Africa Inland Mission, memories of the Congolese people and culture, and her experiences at Wheaton when she was on the staff of the College after retriring from the mission...
Dates: Created: 1984

Collection 344 Oral History Interview with Paul B. Long

 Collection
Identifier: CN 344
Scope and Contents Oral history interviews with Paul Brown Long in which he discusses his childhood, attendance at Wheaton Academy and Wheaton College (including individuals Hudson, Taylor Armerding, Edward A. Coray, V. Raymond Edman, Billy Graham, Ruth Bell Graham, Clarence Jaarsma, Clarence Simpson, C. Gregg Singer), missionary work in education, evangelism, and church planting in the former Belgian Congo and in Brazil. Other topics include animism, church discipline, Christianity and culture, rearing a...
Dates: Created: 1986

Congress on the Church's Worldwide Mission Records

 Collection
Identifier: CN 021
Scope and Contents Materials relating to the Congress on the Church's Worldwide Mission which was held on the Wheaton College campus in 1966 and was jointly sponsored by the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association. Audio tapes document various sessions of the Congress, including biblical expositions, study papers (on subjects like syncretism, church growth, cooperation, the Catholic Church and social issues), reports on missions on the world's...
Dates: Created: 1964-1967

Filtered By

  • Subject: Missions -- Educational work. X

Additional filters:

Subject
Catholic Church -- Protestant churches. 3
Catholic Church. 3
Conversion. 3
Education 3
Missionaries -- Appointment, call, and election. 3
∨ more
Missionaries. 3
Missions -- Congresses. 3
Wheaton College (Ill.) -- Alumni. 3
Animism. 2
Church and social problems. 2
Church and state. 2
Church growth. 2
College students -- Religious life. 2
College students in missionary work. 2
College students. 2
Ecumenical movement. 2
Education -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 2
Evangelicalism. 2
Evangelistic work -- Brazil. 2
Evangelistic work -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 2
Evangelistic work -- Congresses 2
Evangelistic work -- United States. 2
Language in missionary work. 2
Missionaries -- Training of. 2
Missions -- Brazil. 2
Missions -- Congo (Democratic Republic). 2
Missions -- Interdenominational cooperation. 2
Missions -- South America. 2
Missions to Muslims. 2
Missions, Medical. 2
Presbyterian Church -- Missions. 2
Presbyterian Church. 2
Presbyterians. 2
World War, 1939-1945. 2
Abortion 1
Abortion -- Religious aspects. 1
Animism -- Brazil. 1
Animism -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Arab-Israeli conflict. 1
Arabs. 1
Belgium. 1
Belgium. -- Administration. 1
Belgium. -- Colonies 1
Belgium. -- Colonies -- Africa. 1
Blocher, Jacques -- Sermons. 1
Boarding schools -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Boarding schools. 1
Brazil -- Religion. 1
Brazil. 1
Brazil. -- Social conditions. 1
Catholic Church -- Missions. 1
Catholic Church. -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Catholic Church. -- Syria. 1
Children of missionaries -- Education. 1
Children of missionaries. 1
Chinese students. 1
Christian education -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Christian education. 1
Christian literature. 1
Christianity and culture -- Sermons. 1
Christianity and culture. 1
Church -- Biblical teaching. 1
Church and state -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Church and state -- Lebanon. 1
Church and state -- Syria. 1
Church development, New. 1
Church discipline. 1
Church growth -- Sermons. 1
Church work with children -- Congo (Democratic Republic) 1
Church work with children. 1
Church work with students. 1
Church. 1
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Agricultural conditions. 1
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- History -- Civil War, 1960-1965. 1
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Religion. 1
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Social conditions. 1
Congo (Democratic Republic)--Social life and customs 1
Demoniac possession 1
Education -- Israel. 1
Education -- Lebanon. 1
Education -- Syria. 1
English language 1
English language -- Foreign speakers. 1
Epp, Theodore H. -- Sermons. 1
Evangelicalism -- United States. 1
Evangelistic work -- Africa. 1
Evangelistic work -- Argentina. 1
Evangelistic work -- Asia. 1
Evangelistic work -- Australia. 1
Evangelistic work -- Biblical teaching. 1
Evangelistic work -- Canada. 1
Evangelistic work -- Central America. 1
Evangelistic work -- Congresses -- United States. 1
Evangelistic work -- Ecuador. 1
Evangelistic work -- Europe. 1
Evangelistic work -- Germany. 1
Evangelistic work -- Great Britain. 1
Evangelistic work -- Guatemala. 1
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