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.
From the guide to the Edith Winifred Simester papers, 1930-1952, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)
