Ashmore family

William Ashmore, Jr. was born to William, Sr. and Martha Sanderson on September 28, 1851 in Bangkok, Siam where his father was a Baptist missionary to Chinese emigrants from the Swatow District of South China. William, Jr. learned to speak English, Chinese, and Siamese while growing up. His brother Frank was born December 21, 1853. Martha Ashmore became ill in 1858 causing the family's return to the United States; she died enroute. William, Jr. and Frank were raised by her family in the following years, first on their Grandfather Daniel Sanderson's farm in Brookline, Massachusetts and then with their Aunt Carrie Sanderson Spalding in Warren, Rhode Island, while their father acted as missionary to the Swatow District.

William began attending Brown University in 1866, at the age of fifteen, and graduated in 1870, third in his graduating class and also the youngest member. He studied several languages, including French, German, Greek, and Latin. After graduating, he was a teacher, first at Peddie Institute in Hightstown, New Jersey and later at Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois and at Brown. He traveled in Europe during the interim. In 1876 he enrolled at the Rochester Theological Seminary, graduating in 1879. In Rochester, William studied Hebrew. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Brown in 1905.

Following his marriage to Lida Scott on October 10, 1879, William Ashmore, Jr. embarked upon a Baptist missionary career in his father's territory, the Swatow District, which encompassed 46 years. During this time he fathered two children, Edith, born May 27, 1882 and Frank, born January 5 1885. In addition to his duties as administrator and teacher at the mission, William, Jr. used his knowledge of and aptitude for language to translate the Bible into Swatow's Tei-chi dialect. He began this translation early in his missionary career, the first mention was in 1895. The New Testament was completed in the spring of 1898. The final, complete version was translated predominately from 1920 to 1926.

William retired from overseas duties in 1926 to Santa Ana, California. There he lived out his final days finishing his translation and interacting with missionaries. He died March 11, 1937.

Lida Scott was born in Waterford, Michigan, west of Detroit on January 19, 1852 to George and Abigail Hart. She attended Kalamazoo College for a short while before returning home to teach. In 1876, she married Albert Lyon, who was an acquaintance of William Ashmore via the Rochester Theological Seminary. Together they embarked upon a mission in Bhamo, a city near the border of Burma and China. A month after arriving in Bhamo, Albert Lyon died from a fever. Lida returned to the U. S. as soon as possible, teaching in Rangoon while awaiting her departure. She returned to Michigan, where she became reacquainted with William Ashmore, Jr. They married shortly thereafter in order to accompany each other on the upcoming mission to Swatow.

During her years of missionary service in Swatow, Lida was a teacher, administrator, particularly during William's absences into the remote parts of the district, and Red Cross volunteer. She was a painter, seamstress, and gardener. She developed an art program for some of the women of the Swatow District. Their drawings on materials generated income and revenue for the mission. Lida wrote a book detailing her mission's history, The South China Mission of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society . She died in Santa Ana, California on June 6, 1934.

Edith Ashmore, the daughter of William, Jr. and Lida Scott, was born in Swatow May 27, 1882. She and her brother Frank moved to the United States in 1895 where they were raised in a home for missionary children in Morgan Park, Illinois, outside Chicago. Edith graduated from Vassar College in 1906 and later worked at the University of Chicago library. She married Charles Elder August 10, 1916. They had two children, Rachel and Philip, and moved to Boulder, Colorado. Charles died May 22, 1935. Edith relocated to Albany, Oregon and later married Fred Hensolt. Edith stands out primarily as a purposeful collector of her family's papers.

William Ashmore, Sr. was born in Putnam, Ohio on December 25, 1824. He graduated from Granville College in 1845 and from the Western Baptist Theological Institution in Covington, Kentucky in 1848. In 1850, he married Martha Sanderson of Brookline, Massachusetts and they embarked for missionary duties in South China. After Martha died, William, Sr. married Eliza Dunleavy during a furlough in 1863; Eliza died in 1885. In 1890, he married Mrs. Charlotte Brown, widow of a Japanese missionary. William's missionary career lasted until 1903 and he is remembered as an exuberant pioneer of Baptist missions in South China. With William, Jr., he founded the Ashmore Theological Seminary, a college for preachers in Swatow. He died on April 21, 1909 and was buried in the College Cemetery in Granville, Ohio. Most of his records are located at the Denison University library in Granville.

Zar Scott was the brother of Lida Ashmore. He was born in Waterford, Michigan on October 25t 1848. He owned a lumber company in Duluth, Minnesota for most of his life. He contributes to this collection his correspondence with the Ashmores and correspondence with other missionaries in the Scott family, notably Job and Helen Scott.

From the guide to the Ashmore Family papers, 1850-1937, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)