Christopher Noss was born on Sept. 23, 1869 in Huntington, Indiana. He attended Franklin and Marshall Academy, and received his theology degree from Lancaster Theological Seminary. He worked as a missionary in Japan circa 1893-1934. He married his first wife, Lura Boyer, on October 22, 1895. They had six children before her death in 1907. Noss married Carol (Carolyn) Day, a 1905 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, on July 14, 1909. They remained in Japan and had six more children. Christopher died on December 31, 1934. Fredrick Boyer Noss was born in Japan on June 3, 1901. He came to the United States in 1916 to attend Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1919. He graduated from Princeton University in 1923. He worked as a teacher at Massanutten Academy in Woodstock, Virginia 1923-1924. He then attended Harvard and graduated from its Divinity School in 1935. He married Emily Letitia Miller, had two daughters, and was a minister of the South Church in Andover, Mass. Anna Isabel Noss, or Annabelle as she is referred to in the letters, was born in Japan on December 4, 1899. She graduated from Northfield Seminary in Northfield, Mass. in 1917 and from Mount Holyoke College in 1921. She was an English teacher at Ilion High School (Ilion, N.Y.) 1921-1923, then went to the Oberlin College Kindergarten Training School 1923-1924 to prepare for work as a missionary in Japan. She did not go to Japan, however, and in 1925 was an assistant teacher at the Carter School in Princton, N.J. She married Ivan R. Welty in 1926, enrolled in the Oberlin College School of Theology and received her M.A. there in 1928. The Weltys had four children.
From the guide to the Noss Family Papers MS 0624., 1912-1924., (Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections)
