1843 Letter from a Returned Missionary Wife to Beirut, Discussing American Board Politics, Women Missionaries, and “the internal state of things” in the Syria Mission.
Wolfboro, New Hampshire: September 11–12, 1843. Stampless folded letter, 4pp measuring 8 ¼ x 10 ¼ inches, to Mrs. H. A. Keyes, Beirut, Syria, care of Rev. R. Anderson, D.D., Missionary Rooms, Boston, and J. Lyman, London. Manuscript Wolfboro postmark, September 13, and “Paid 12½.” With two disinfectant slits. Manuscript postmark notes passage through London. Excellent. Item #List38138 A long 1843 letter from Anne Eliza Thompson in Wolfboro, New Hampshire, to Mrs. H. A. Keyes in Beirut, Syria. Thompson writes after her return from the Syria mission with the ABCFM. Thompson describes an excursion to the White Mountains with her parents and husband, comparing the ascent of Mount Washington to journeys on Mount Lebanon: “Our journeyings on Mt. Lebanon were vividly brought to mind by our ride up to the highest point of Mt. Washington […] The road would not shame Mt. Lebanon paths. It wound round over a number of the neighboring mountains, Mt. Clinton, Mt. Pleasant, Mt. Franklin, & the base of Mt. Monroe, before we ascended Mt. Washington, king of them all.” After visiting Franconia, the iron works, Ore Hill, and the Old Man of the Mountain, Thompson turns to missionary circles. She had recently seen a Mrs. Bird, who had spent years in Beirut, and found it “very delightful to meet one so fully acquainted with Beyroot”: “We talked incessantly. I presume she knows no other cause for our return than the state of Mr. Thompson’s health, & the unsettled state of the country — that is, she appears to know nothing about the internal state of things, which have so much tried us.” The strongest passage concerns Miss Tilden, another returned woman missionary, and her dealings with Dr. Anderson and the Board. Thompson copies Tilden’s account of being asked whether her name should appear in the mission report, and of Anderson’s desire to know only such reasons for her return as could properly be made public: “Dr. A. was absent when she arrived, & in his first letter to her ‘he said he thought she would not wish her name mentioned in the report as a member of the Mission’. He seemed to wish all her reasons for returning, at the same time he only wanted those that were proper for him to know. He left with her the impression that he wished not to know what he could not publish. She thought it, as I doubt not it was, ‘a very cunning letter’. His second letter in answer to hers was ‘all honey’.” Thompson is especially sharp on the reception given to Tilden as a single woman who had exhausted herself in mission service: “She said she never felt so completely worn out in her life, & ‘when Mr. H. asked her in a cool, distant manner what her plans were, she was so affected she could not reply for sometime’ […] I do not wonder the poor girl’s feelings were injured. Too cool a reception for one who had completely worn herself out in the service of the Board, and that one a single unprotected female.” She then warns Keyes to keep the matter private: “Do not let anyone see this, but your husband. I do not know but she has written you the same, but as she may not I hope you will not make any allusion to it in your letters to her.” The remainder of the letter includes news of Thompson’s husband, possible calls to preach in New Hampshire, the illness and teething of her son Edwin, and questions about Beirut and el-Abadiyeh: “Are you as pleasantly situated as in el Abadiyeh? I look back to that place as the paradise of my Syrian life.” She sends salaams to “all our native friends,” asks whether Butress is married, and requests all the news Keyes can provide. A strong women’s missionary letter, with content on the Syria mission, Beirut, el-Abadiyeh, returned missionary life, American Board discretion, female missionary vulnerability, and the private correspondence networks through which missionary women discussed what official reports left out.
Price: $950.00
Status: On Hold