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.
From the guide to the Willard Livingstone Beard Family Papers, 1892-1964, (Yale University Divinity School Library)
