Overview
| Repository: |
Yale University Divinity School
Library
409 Prospect Street New Haven, CT 06511 Email: divinity.library@yale.edu Phone: (203) 432-5301 |
| Call Number: | Record Group No. 108 |
| Creator: | Beard, Willard Livingstone, 1865-1947. |
| Title: | Willard Livingstone Beard Family Papers, |
| Dates: | 1892-1964 |
| Physical Description: | Total archival boxes 13; total linear footage 6' |
| Language(s): | Materials in English. |
| Summary: | Correspondence, diaries, writings, and collected material provide valuable documentation of the work of Willard Livingstone Beard and his family. Beard was a missionary in China from 1894 to 1941, serving in Fukien Province under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the YMCA. |
| View/Search: | To view and/or search the entire finding aid, see the Full HTML(NOTE: for large finding aids, the full HTML view may take up to 30 seconds to render) or the Printable PDF. |
| Finding Aid Link: | To cite or bookmark this finding aid, use the following address: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/divinity.108 |
| Request Materials: | To view manuscript and archival materials at the Yale Divinity Library, please submit the request form at http://www.library.yale.edu/div/request.htm. |
| Catalog Record: | A record for this collection, including location information, may be available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog. |
Administrative Information
Provenance
Gift of the Geraldine Beard (original collection, ca. 1993) and the Beard family (addendum, 2006-2007, 2010).
Information about Access
Open to qualified researchers.
Cite As
Willard Livingstone Beard Family Papers, Record Group No. 108, Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library.
Biography
Willard Livingstone Beard was born in Shelton, Connecticut in 1865, son of Oliver Gould Beard and Nancy Maria Nichols Beard. Following his marriage to Ellen Kinney in 1894, he served the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' Foochow mission for over forty years (1894-1941). The Beards had six children: Phebe (1895-1925), Myron Gould (1896-1974), Geraldine (1898-1993), Dorothy (1901-1991), Marjorie (1906-1995), and Kathleen (1908-2004). During the period 1905-1910, Beard was released by the ABCFM to set up and head a branch of the YMCA in Fukien province. Beard died in 1947 and Ellen Kinney Beard died in 1953.
Willard Beard had two sisters, Flora and Mary, who also worked in China. Flora lived in Foochow from October of 1906 to July of 1909; she was not officially a missionary but taught missionary children. In 1914, Flora and her youngest sister Mary Louise Beard left the U.S. for Peking where they founded the North China American School (NCAS) for missionary children. The sisters were at NCAS from 1914 to 1920.
Description of the Papers
The Willlard L. Beard Family Papers consist of six linear feet of material divided into seven series. The papers provide valuable early documentation of ABCFM and YMCA work in the Foochow area. They include not only Beard's personal correspondence and diaries, but also collected report and printed material documenting mission work in Fukien province. A substantial amount of material has been added to this collection since it was microfilmed as part of the Adam Matthew "China Through Western Eyes" collection and the box and folder numbers have been revised. The Beard Family Papers complement other collections at the Yale Divinity Library that document mission work in the Fukien Province, including the papers of Emily Susan Hartwell, Eva Asher, Charles and Mary Storrs, and others.
Series I, Correspondence, consists primarily of family correspondence, with a small amount of correspondence addressed to non-family. The family correspondence is arranged in chronological order. The original collection contained forty-nine letters of Beard, one from Ellen Kinney Beard and two from Phebe Kinney Beard. In 2006 and 2010, the Beard family donated numerous additional letters. Transcripts and abstracts for the much of the correspondence have been prepared by Jana Jackson, wife of the grandson of Kathleen Beard Elmer; they are filed in the same folders as the original letters. A full set of the transcribed letters, with commentary and photographs is available in Series VII. Electronic copies of the letters are also available.
Many of the added letters were in the possession of Donald MacInnis for a number of years, as he did research for his book, China Chronicles from a Lost Time: the Min River Journals. The letters are primarily written from Foochow or Kuliang (a summer resort for missionaries in the mountains) to family members in the U.S. Letters addressed to "Friends at home", "Home friends", and "Folks at home" have been included in the Family Correspondence sub-series. The letters give substantial accounts of the Beards' daily work and touch on political events and social issues in China.
Among the newly added correspondence in Series I are substantive letters written by Willard Beard's sisters Flora and Mary. Besides describing their day-to-day work at the North China American School in Peking (Beijing), they describe trips they took in China, the funeral procession of Yuan Shi Kai, the political situation, and rest and relaxation at the seaside resort of Pei Tai Ho.
The Diaries and Journals of Series II include three daily diaries of the Imperial English and Chinese Diary format, which provide regular accounts of Beard's activities and acquaintances, and two accounts of trips taken by Beard. A daily account of a trip from Foochow to Shaowu and back (1906 Nov - 1907 Jan) provides a valuable detailed account of typical missionary work.
Writings in Series II include Beard's account of a dispute between two villages near Foochow and the visit of E. Stanley Jones to Foochow. Collected Material in Series III documents the work of the American Board in Fukien Province and Foochow College. Photographs, biographical information, and memorabilia complete the collection.