Simpson Montgomery Molen (1832-1900) was born in Jacksonville, Illinois. His family moved to Camp Creek, near Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1845. After the Latter Day Saints prophet Joseph Smith was murdered in the following year, the Molen family left for Salt Lake City. In 1854, when he was 22, Molen left on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands and stayed there for four years. In the spring of 1876 he went on a second mission to Hawaii, accompanied by his wife, Jane Hyde Molen. This mission lasted three years and three months. his wife's diary, covering the period 18 May 1876 - 12 February 1877, has been microfilmed as PMB 527
The diary describes part of Molen's first mission to the Hawaiian Islands. It is followed by an account of his life copied from Vol.IV of Orson F. Whitney's History of Utah.
William A. Moody was a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Samoa in 1894-98 and 1908-10.
The diary contains an account of Moody's work in Samoa from October 1894 to May 1898 and from April 1908 to August 1910. In the interim years there is an account of his life in Arizona. The diary also contains some information on Fiji in 1908.
David Voeta was associated with the Methodist Mission in the West of the Solomon Islands. Diary (possibly a transcript), May 1935-Jan 1936. English translation of the diary, May 1935-Jan 1936.
Rev. Arthur A. Bensley (1884-1974) was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was the first New Zealand Methodist Minister appointed to the Solomon Islands, taking over Bilua Station, at Vella Lavella, Bougainville, from Rev. Reginald Nicholson in 1921 and remaining at the station till 1934. He met and married Sister Constance Olds there. He mastered the Bilua language and did a great deal of translation work. For six years, he edited the NZ Methodist Mission's children's paper, Lotu. Following his retirement from the Methodist Mission in the Solomon Islands he held ministries in Morrinsville, Greymouth and Tauranga in New Zealand. He was supernumerary from 1950.
Diary (original Ms.,.)<BR> 17 May 1926-27 Jul 1931(2 vols.)<BR> 1 May-15 Dec 1934 (Pt. 1 vol.)<BR>10 Sep-27 Dec ? (loose pages)<BR>Transcript of diary and index, 17 Aug 1926-27 Jul 1931, 1 May-15 Dec 1934<P><b>See reel list for further details</b>
This diary, associated with the Methodist Mission in the Solomon Islands, was found with Job Tozaka's diary (see PMB 1102). Diary of an unnamed person, possibly John Kevisi, 14 Jan-21 Apr 1937. See reel list for further details.
Dec 1938-Mar 1940, Nov 1941-Feb 1943 (diary) 1942-1978 (correspondence, press cuttings and other documents)
Sister Merle Farland (1906?-1988) trained at Auckland Hospital. In 1938 she was appointed to a nursing position at NZ Methodist Mission's Helena Goldie Hospital at Bilua, Vella Lavella. Most of the missionaries left the Solomon Islands in January 1942 when the Japanese first attacked Rabaul, however Sister Farland refused to leave on the grounds that a nurse was necessary to attend to the needs of Solomon Islanders and that, as she had just returned from furlough, she was the right person to stay. From Bilua she visited New Georgia, Simbo and Choiseul which were occupied by the Japanese at the time. For a time, Miss Farland ran a coast watching station herself. Travelling a good 100 miles by canoe through enemy lines she was eventually evacuated by Catalina from Sege at the south end of New Georgia. After the War Sister Farland became a tutor sister at Lautoka Hospital where she was presented with a MBE for her services on 12 May 1947. (Fiji Times, 14 May 1947)
Sister Merle Farland: diary, 1938-1940, 1941-Feb 1943(photocopy of the original); index to Sister Farland's diary; The Gizo Scuttle, by Rev. J. R. Metcalfe; press cuttings, 1942-1988; correspondence, 1942-1944. <P><b>See reel list for further details</b>
Eleanor J. Walker was a member of the Methodist mission at Dobu in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua New Guinea (then called British New Guinea). The mission was established in June 1891. For details, see George Brown, D.D., Pioneer Missionary and Explorer : An Autobiography, London, 1908, pp485-92.
The diary describes how the diarist came to join the mission and gives an account of her life at Dobu.
In early 1942 Len Odgers was employed as a clerk in the New Guinea Administration and was based at Wewak.
Handwritten diary which initially describes events in Wewak and Angoram in early 1942 at the time of the approach of the Japanese military forces. Unwilling to risk a maritime escape from the approaching Japanese, a party of eight European men undertook an overland evacuation to the Papuan coast. The party, under the leadership of Jack Thurston, departed Timbunki on the Sepik River on 14 April, proceeding up river on the vessel Thetis. On 28 April the party left the Thetis and proceeded up the May River by canoe. On 8 May the party commenced walking and arrived in the Telefomin Valley on 25 May. In late July they arrived at the Fly River where they built canoes and floated down river to the Papuan coast. On 24 September they arrived at Daru, almost six months after their departure from Angoram. The diary concludes in October 1942.
Typescript transcript of the diary, complete with an introduction, prepared by Odgers in April 1943.
Sr Rhoda Ransom, born Maryborough Victoria, 29 Dec 1887, worked as a nursing sister with the Methodist Mission in New Guinea from July 1912 until March 1913 when she returned to Australia suffering from malaria and rheumatic problems in her legs.
• Passport, c.1949 • Diary, Jul 1912-Mar 1913 • Photograph of Sr. Rhoda Ransom • Map of Duke of York and Ulu Island annotated by Sr Rhoda • Postcards (36 items), some annotated by Sr. Rhoda: Methodist Mission in New Guinea and Fiji, together with some German New Guinea postcards. See Finding aids for details. See also PMB Photo 14.
Diary of a journey to Tahiti, Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Miller (1867-1960) was an elder of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the time of his journey.
