Scope and Contents note
The Edith Simester collection includes incoming correspondence from missionary colleagues and from former students. Also included is a one-volume letterbook with transcriptions of letters from Simester to her mother, dated February 24, 1945-September 6, 1946. Collection also include photographs from Simester's service in China.
This collection is remarkable because it demonstrates the connections between foreign missionaries in China. Unlike similar collections in this repository that offer materials authored by an individual missionary woman, the Simester collection brings together a small assemblage of correspondence authored by Methodist missionary women from Tientsin (Tianjin), and Ch'angli, to Peking (Beijing). Thus, the Simester collection offers insights into communication between missionary women. Simester also received a number of letters from former students upon her 1946 departure from China. Many wrote from Chinese universities to express their regret upon her departure. The collection also includes several letters from a Brazilian correspondent, César Dacorso Filho.
Dates
- 1930-1952
Creator
- Simester, Edith Winifred (Person)
Conditions Governing Access note
Collection is open to the public. Collection must be used in Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room. Collection or parts of collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives in advance of your visit to allow for transportation time.
Conditions Governing Use note
Property rights reside with Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries. Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs. All requests for permission to publish collection materials must be submitted to Special Collections and University Archives. The reader must also obtain permission of the copyright holder.
Biographical/Historical note
Born into a Methodist missionary family in China, Edith Simester attended Chinese schools before moving to the United States where she attended college and graduate school. In 1930, Simester entered missionary service and moved to Foochow (Fuzhou) in northern China where she worked as a teacher in a missionary school. She remained in Fuzhou until 1946 (however, it appears that she was in the United States during much of World War II, from 1937-45) when she returned to the U.S. to care for her ailing mother. Simester took a missionary post in Brazil, in order to be closer to her mother who died in 1952.
Extent
0.25 linear feet (1 container, 4 folders)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Edith Simester was a Christian missionary in China and later Brazil, serving from the 1930s through the 1950s. The collection includes incoming correspondence and transcriptions of letters to her mother.
Existence and Location of Copies note
Available in microfilm as part of: Women's lives. Series 3, American women missionaries and pioneers collection (MICROFILM BV3703 .W66 2006, reel 53); Primary Source Microfilm, 12 Lunar Dr., Woodbridge, Conn. 06525.
General Physical Description note
1 containter, 4 folders
Processing Information
Collection processed by staff.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Correspondence Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Dacorso Filho, César
- Dacorso Filho, César
- Methodist women -- China -- Correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Missionaries Subject Source: Archiveswest
- Missions, American -- Brazil Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Missions, American -- China Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Mothers and daughters -- Correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Photographs Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Religion Subject Source: Archiveswest
- Simester, Edith Winifred
- Women Subject Source: Archiveswest
- Women Christian educators -- China -- Correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Women missionaries -- China -- Correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Women missionaries -- China -- Photographs Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Guide to the Edith Winifred Simester Papers
- Status
- Complete Description
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Veta Schlimgen, Manuscripts Processor
- Date
- ©2006
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is in English
- Sponsor
- Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Repository Details
Part of the University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives Repository
