Collection 044 Papers of Helen M. Tenney
Scope and Contents
Correspondence, scrapbook, drafts, articles, and research notes which reflect Tenney's active participation in a number of evangelical ministries, but particularly her work with the Woman's Union Missionary Society (WUMS), especially the labor she put into writing a history of that organization. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts of that history.
Dates
- Created: 1882-1980
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on the use of this collection
Biographical Information
Helen Margaret was born to Rev. John E. and Mary Olsen Jaderquist July 22, 1904 in Buffalo, New York. Her father, a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor, served as a pastor, teacher, denominational executive, director of publications for the CMA, and on the board as representative for several foreign mission boards. Helen had one sister, Mary Elizabeth (born 1906) who married W. Wallace Padden. She graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois in 1925 with a B.A. in history, from Northwestern University in 1928 with a M.A. in history and from Gordon College in Massachusetts in 1928 with a B.D. Helen taught at Northfield Seminary in Massachusetts from 1928 until her marriage in 1930 to Merrill C. Tenney.
After their marriage the Tenneys moved to Wenham, where he was a professor at Gordon College. In 1943, when he became a professor at Wheaton College, the family moved to Wheaton, Illinois.
Helen Tenney served on the board of Women's Union Missionary Society (WUMS) and was active in its work as was her sister who served as president of the society for over ten years. She authored a history of the WUMS which is included in this collection. She also wrote Mark's Sketchbook of Christ (1956), several magazine articles and Sunday school materials and served as an officer of the Woman's Fellowship of the National Association of Evangelicals. After a long illness, Mrs. Tenney died January 22, 1978.
Extent
1.60 Cubic Feet (6 boxes (4 DC, 2 card files), Photographs)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement of Materials
The contents of this collection to a small degree illustrate Mrs. Tenney's active participation as an officer in a number of evangelical ministries but mostly the files document her work in the W.U.M.S. and especially the labor she put into her history of that organization, No Higher Honor.
Well over two thirds of the collection consists of various drafts of different parts of the book. Folders 2-3 thru 2-15 contain successive versions of the preface, most chapters, and the appendix (which lists the names of missionaries sent out by W.U.M.S. and some details of their service). Folders 1-13, 1-14, 2-1, and 2-2 contain almost complete drafts of the book at various stages of its development. The manuscript in folder 1-13 is probably the book in its final form except for some missing pages. Other parts of the collection contain the raw material from which Mrs. Tenney constructed the book. boxes 3 and 4 contain hundreds of her research notes. These notes are arranged in their original order and condition, except that where paper clips and rubber bands had been used to separate them into groups, blank card guides have been substituted. Folder 2-16 contains documents or copies of documents she consulted such as wills; papers by Sarah D. Doremus, one of the founders of the W.U.M.S., in which she gives details of the early days of the organization and describes a world tour she took of its mission in the years 1901-1902; a brief history written in 1911 of the Society's work in Japan; a very interesting account by missionary Pollock of life in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; an article about Elizabeth Pollock; an account of the beginning of the Multan Hospital in India; and a very early document outlining the goals of the W.U.M.S. and several endorsements the work had received. Other folders also hold apparent sources such as annual reports, newspaper clippings, and pamphlets put out by the Society describing its work.
There are six files that deal with non-W.U.M.S. matters. File 1-1 contains correspondence with friends of Mrs. Tenney, although here too some of the information in the letters was intended for her book or for an article on W.U.M.S., such as a 1969 letter by a woman missionary describing life in a Japanese internment camp. Folders 1-2 and 1-4 contain copies of reports handed out at a mission executives meeting in 1965 and 1968 describing various aspects of world wide mission activities. Mrs. Tenney's work in the Women's Fellowship of the National Association of Evangelicals is amply documented by numerous copies of minutes of committee meetings, balance sheets, and annual reports. The reports and minutes also describe many of the projects the Fellowship was involved in, such as prayer days, Bible classes, support for missionaries and humanitarian relief, and work for anti-pornography legislation (folders 1-6 to 1-11). Folder 1-5 contains an interesting 1945 booklet entitled Through Shining Archway published by the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society and the Women's American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. It describes the careers and martyrdoms of eleven missionaries stationed in the Philippines in 1942. Pictures of the martyrs are included in the booklet.
The collection also includes pamphlets, manuscripts, papers and a scrapbook. Included in Folder 5-1 is a 20th anniversary booklet, 1921-1941, for the Shanghai Union School of Nursing of Margaret Williamson Hospital, as well as a Founder's Day publication for the same hospital. There is one copy of The Sunday School Times, September 17, 1960. A centenary booklet commemorates Mary A. Merriman School, 1880-1980. Miscellaneous re-writes of chapter of No Higher Honor are contained Folder 5-2. A complete manuscript of the supplement to Mrs. Tenney's history, covering the subsequent years 1960-1980, is in Folder 5-3. Newspaper clippings of World Day of Prayer in Wheaton, Illinois, between 1932 and 1949 are in a scrapbook in Folder 6-1. Folder 6-2 contains miscellaneous papers, including a history of the Yokohama Church , 1932, and a movingly-written description of the accidental death of Marion Childress in India in 1963.
ADDENDUM: Final table of contents for No Higher Honor
I. A Seed Long Buried
II. A Bold Venture
III. Scaling Zenana Walls
IV. Gateway to India
V. Education -- A Means to an End
VI. Kahpur -- Merriman School and Orphanage
VII. Jhansi -- Ackerman-Hoyt Hospital
VIII. Fatehpur -- Place of Victory
IX. Fatehpur -- Lily Lytle Broadwell Hospital
X. China -- Creating a New Class of Women
XI. Margaret Williamson Hospital
XII. Japan
XIII. The Multan Story -- W. Pakistan
Accruals and Additions
The materials for this collection were given to the Billy Graham Center Archives in April and June of 1978, and April of 1979, 1980, and 1981 from Dr. Merrill Tenney. Additional materials were given to the Archives in 1981 by W. Wallace Paddon.
Accession: 78-10, 78-12, 78-21, 78-24, 79-3, 79-37, 79-111
79-123, 80-59, 81-8a, 81-39
June 22, 1978
Robert Shuster
M. Schimmels
January 9, 1979, revised
April 18, 1979, revised
Revised, July 9, 1981
Francis L. Brocker
J. Nasgowitz
Retyped, revised
March 11, 1993
M. L. Wohlschlegel
J. Archer
- Ackerman Hoyt Memorial Hospital (Jhansi, India)
- American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.
- Baptists -- Missions.
- Baptists.
- Childress, Marion Elizabeth.
- China.
- Christian education -- India.
- Christian education -- Japan.
- Christian education.
- Christianity and culture -- India.
- Christianity and culture -- Japan.
- Church schools -- India.
- Church schools.
- Church work with women -- China.
- Church work with women -- India.
- Church work with women -- Japan.
- Church work with women.
- Doremus, Sarah Platt, 1803-1877.
- Evangelistic work -- China.
- Evangelistic work -- India.
- Evangelistic work -- Japan.
- Evangelistic work -- Pakistan.
- Evangelistic work.
- Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America.
- International relief.
- Lytle Hospital (Fatehpur, India)
- Margaret Williamson Hospital (Shanghai, China)
- Marston, Sarah Hall.
- Medical care
- Medical care -- China.
- Medical care -- India.
- Merriman School (Kanpur, India)
- Missions -- China.
- Missions -- Educational work.
- Missions -- India.
- Missions -- Interdenominational cooperation.
- Missions -- Japan.
- Missions -- Pakistan.
- National Association of Evangelicals.
- Nursing schools
- Nursing schools -- China.
- Nursing schools -- India.
- Nursing schools -- Pakistan.
- Paddon, Beth Jaderquist.
- Pollock, Elizabeth.
- Pornography
- Pornography -- Religious aspects.
- Prayer groups -- United States.
- Prayer groups.
- Prayer.
- Prisoners of war
- Prisoners of war -- China.
- Religious institutions.
- Sex role -- United States.
- Sex role.
- Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1937-1945.
- Tenney, Helen J.
- Wheaton (Ill.)
- Woman’s Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands.
- Women
- Women -- Education.
- Women -- Religious life.
- Women authors, American.
- Women in church work -- United States.
- Women in church work.
- Women missionaries.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Japanese.
- World War, 1939-1945.
- Title
- Collection 044 Papers of Helen M. Tenney
- Author
- Bob Shuster
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Evangelism & Missions Archives Repository