Johns Family Archives
Item set
- Title
- Johns Family Archives See all item sets with this value
- Description
- Most of the photographs in this collection were taken by Alfred Johns, educational missionary of the Canadian Methodist Mission. Johns was the first mathematics professor at the newly established West China Union University, Chengdu, Sichuan, when he and his wife Myrtle Madge Johns arrived in West China in 1910. See all item sets with this value
- Abstract
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Brief Statement about Alfred and Myrtle Johns
By Ken Johns
My grandparents, Alfred and Myrtle Johns went to Chengdu in 1910 as newly married 26 year olds from the farm lands of south west Ontario.. Alfred had studied mathematics at university and Myrtle had school teaching experience. They went to China without any knowledge of the language but once they were fluent enough, Alfred taught mathematics at the University in Chengdu. Myrtle taught school for a while but in 1913 began a family with the birth of my father, Martin Johns, in 1913. Another child came along in 1915 and they returned to Canada for a one year furlough in 1917 before going back to China. By the time they left china for the last time in 1925, there were five children in the family. The church authorities were unwilling to let the children return to China in 1926 due to an uncertain political situation so my grandparents remained with their family in Canada.
My grandfather eventually became a Mathematics Professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. He was known as a caring teacher throughout his long career.
Alfred died in 1959 and Myrtle in 1977. See all item sets with this value - Creator
- Alfred Johns
- Date Created
- 1910 - 1925
- Location
- Sichuan and Hubai provinces in China, and locations on travel routes to West China See all item sets with this value
- Event Records
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1910-1911 Johns' First Yangtze River Journey
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1911 Johns' Mt. Omei Trek
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1911-1912 Nationalist Revolution Evacuation
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1912 Famine Relief
- Provenance
- These photographs have remained in the Johns family through three generations. Ken Johns inherited them from his father, Martin Johns, oldest son of Fred and Myrtle. Ken Johns digitized the images and transcribed the captions. See all item sets with this value
- Source
- Courtesy of Ken Johns
- References
- Martin Johns. 1992. Bamboo Sprouts and Maple Buds: Being Memoirs of a Life Begun in China in 1913 and Transplanted to Canada in 1925. Hamilton: Martin Johns
- Access Rights
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Items
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02 Canadian Missionaries Aboard the Empress of Japan, 1910 Six Canadian missionary couples on board the Empress of Japan enroute to begin their missionary careers in West China. Top row: Rev. Thomas Bateman, Dr. David McKinley, Alfred Johns, Fred Abrey, Gordon Jones. Middle row: Mrs. Elsie Abrey, Mrs. Myrtle Johns, Dr. Omar Kilborn, Dr. Retta Kilborn, Mrs. Susie Mabel McKinley. Front row: Mrs. Clara Jones, Roland Kenneth Kilborn, Mrs. Alice Bateman. The Kilborns are the only seasoned missionaries in the group. -
Mrytle & Fred Johns Wedding Portrait Upper body portrait of Alfred and Myrtle Madge Johns on the occasion of their wedding at UsborneTwp, near Exeter, ON.