IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
MYRLE OLIVE WARD (1897-1992)
PAPERS, 1876-1992
(bulk 1930s-1940s)
1 linear foot
|
ACQUISITION: |
The papers (donor no. 134) were donated by Betty
H. Victor in 1991. |
|
ACCESS: |
The papers are open for research. |
|
COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University
of Iowa. |
|
PHOTOGRAPHS: |
In box 2. |
|
PROCESSED BY: |
Natalie Brody, 1992. |
Biography
Myrle Olive Ward was born December 5, 1897, in Hamburg,
Iowa, the fourth of eight children of Cyrus and Augusta Miller Ward. In 1908,
at the age of eleven, she moved to Farragut, Iowa, to live with her maternal
aunts, Izetta and Winnie Miller. In
1915 she graduated from Farragut High School, and in 1919 she received a
Bachelor of Arts degree from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri. For the following four years she taught
English and Latin in high schools in Maywood, Missouri, and Farragut and Essex,
Iowa.
For two years, from 1923 to 1925, she attended the
College of Missions in Indianapolis, Indiana.
After her graduation she began her thirty-year career as a missionary
for the Disciples of Christ Church.
During those years she continued her education, at the University of
Chicago in 1933 and at the University of Colorado in the summers of 1940 and
1945.
Her first missionary assignment was a three-year
general service in Jamaica, West Indies, from 1925 to 1928. For the next twenty years she served at the Disciples
of Christ Congo Mission in the Equatorial Province (Belgian Congo, now Zaire)
where she supervised village schools at Wema and Lotumbe.
In 1950 she was re-assigned to Jamaica and stayed
there until 1957, as matron of a dormitory, treasurer of the mission and
co-director of three work camps. In
1957 she returned to the Congo as treasurer of the District of Christ Mission,
but because of family illness she returned to the United States in 1959 and
settled in Red Oak, Iowa.
During her years in Red Oak she was an active
volunteer in church and community activities such as the Good Samaritan Nursing
Home and Church Women United.
Myrle Ward was widely honored for her outstanding
service. She received awards as the Outstanding Alumna at Culver-Stockton
University (1963); volunteer of the year, Iowa Health Care Association (1981);
30 year plaque from the American Cancer Society in 1985; and in 1988 she
received the Governor's Award for her participation in the adult literacy
program.
Ward continued to travel widely during these years,
to South America, to the Far East, Australia and New Zealand in 1970, and to
Alaska in 1976.
Ward died in Red Oak on April 28, 1992, of leukemia.
Scope and
Content Note
This collection focuses primarily on Ward's missionary
experience, especially her service in the Belgian Congo during the 1930s and
1940s. The two five-year diaries and most of the correspondence, as well as many photographs, are from these years in
Africa.
A book describing these years, In the Footsteps of the Elephant,
was privately published in 1992. It
contains three chapters. One is a
thirty-nine day diary of a journey in Africa; another contains excerpts from
letters to her family and friends, the originals of which are included in this
collection; and the third chapter is a report about the educational program in
the Belgian Congo, a paper she submitted for a summer school course at the
University of Colorado in 1945.
Biographical
information,
vital papers, photographic portraits and snapshots of Ward, as well as
genealogical information and family photographs comprise the remainder of the
collection.
Artifacts from Africa have been given to
Culver-Stockton University in Canton, Missouri along with black and white
photos of her missionary work. Her
large collection of color slides of Africa and the photo albums of her travels
have been given to Red Oak Community Media Center.
Box no. Description
Box 1
Biographical information
Family history and
correspondence
Correspondence
Belgian Congo, 1929-1947
(bulk 1930s)
General (1908, 1956, 1966, 1991, and undated;
annotated
postcards)
Diploma, Farragut High
School diploma, 1925 [oversize: shelved in map case drawer 2]
Manuscripts
"What We Owe To
Dreamers" (April 29, 1915)
"The Religious Dance:
An Introduction to the Study of Religion"
"Why Young People
Should Prepare for Foreign Service"
In The Footsteps of The Elephant, 1992 [shelved in printed works collection]
Manuscripts for Chapters 1
and 3
Box
2
Diaries (2 vols.)
January 1,
1935 - December 31, 1939
January 1, 1940 - 1945 (irregular entries)
Day Book
September-October, 1970 [a
trip to the Far East, Australia and New Zealand for the Eighth Assembly of the
World Convention of the Christian Churches, Adelaide, October 19-25]
Reminder book, 1962
Notes on places visited
Picture postcards (Canada,
Alaska, Rio de Janeiro, Panama, and miscellaneous)
Inspirational clippings
Memorabilia
Army Song Book, 1918
Autograph book, 1925
Picturesque Jamaica
Photographs of Myrle Ward
Photographs (4 envelopes in
1 folder)
Belgian Congo and Jamaica,
the latter from the 1950's Alaska, Canada, Northwest United States (1976)
Family photographs
Miscellaneous