Susan Rowena Bird Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-351

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The papers of Susan Rowena Bird (1865-1900) and the Bird family provide a good source for study of the missionary settlement in Shanxi Province, China, and its programs prior to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The collection consists primarily of correspondence from Susan Rowena Bird during her time in China as a missionary, as well as letters from other residents of the Taigu community and other Bird family members.

Susan Rowena Bird was a member of the “Oberlin Band,” the group of Oberlinian missionaries working in Shanxi Province. The papers provide insight into the circumstances of this group of missionaries prior to their deaths and the scattering of the community during the violence of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion.

The letters written by Bird to her mother include some information about the organization of the missionary community at Taigu and about her work there, as well as personal accounts of her journey and life in China. Letters written to her mother by H.H. Kung, Luella Miner, another missionary, and H.P. Pond of Oberlin, following Bird’s death, discuss her work in the settlement and also provide some detail about H.H. Kung, later to become an Oberlin student (AB 1906) and eventually the Chinese finance minister. Other family correspondence is primarily anecdotal and personal in nature.

The collection is organized into six series, the first of which is devoted entirely to correspondence. The subsequent series consist of miscellaneous materials pertaining to William H. Bird, genealogical notes on the Bird family, photographic and other materials related to Bird family members and associates of Susan Rowena Bird, photocopied material received from the Bird family at a 2002 family reunion, and photographs copied from the family at the same occasion. Photocopies of the original documents are also housed in the collection and are kept together within one file folder. The photocopied material received in July 2002 includes letters from Susan Rowena Bird, E.E. Strong, and W.A. Hemingway of Taigu, China. Also included is the partial journal of Susan Rowena Bird, written during the time directly preceding her death in the Boxer Rebellion, which describes the increasing agitation within her community in Shanxi Province, China.

Although the papers do not include biographical information, the researcher can consult the student file of Susan Rowena Bird for biographical information (see Alumni Records, RG 28/2).

Dates

Creation: 1843-1945, undated
Other: Majority of material found in 1843-1932
Other: Date acquired: 2001 September 26

Creator

Bird, Susan Rowena (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Unrestricted.

Biographical or Historical Information

Susan Rowena Bird was born July 31, 1865, in Sandoval, Illinois. She was the first child and only daughter of William Harrison and Susan Bowen Bird, a middle class family in the upper Midwestern United States. To avoid confusion with her mother, the family members called Susan Rowena by her middle name. Much of Rowena’s early education was received from her father, a Protestant clergyman and home missionary. In 1884, seven years after her father’s death, her mother moved the family to Oberlin, Ohio. Bird, then aged nineteen, completed her high school studies in Oberlin.

After attending public school in Oberlin, Susan Rowena Bird learned about the Student Volunteer Movement. This movement was popular at colleges in the Eastern United States, where members of the group involved themselves in weekly prayer and mission study meetings as well as participating in charity work at local missions. A belief in the Second Coming of Christ represented the zeal behind this non-denominational organization. The conversion of heathens was an urgent matter among some young Americans of the era, as is indicated by the Student Volunteer Movement’s slogan: “Evangelize the World in This Generation.” Thus, educated young people fanned the flames to support foreign missionaries. Spurred on by this idea and movement, Rowena began to entertain the possibility of doing church work abroad. With this in mind, she enrolled in Oberlin College in 1884 to get an appropriate education.

Oberlin College awarded Susan Rowena Bird a Literary degree in 1890. Subsequently, in 1895, the College also awarded her an AB degree. According to her student records, this second undergraduate degree was probably not earned, but awarded in recognition of her accomplishments and study of the Chinese language following her arrival in China.

In September 1890, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Boston, accepted Rowena’s application to go to China. She was twenty-five years old at the time she embarked on a missionary career. Upon reaching Shanxi Province, China, Rowena joined the Clapps (Dwight Howard and Mary Jane), Charles Wesley and Eva Jane Price, the Thompsons (James, Marion, and Alma) and the recently arrived Davises (Francis Ward and Lydia Lord). The group, consisting of Oberlin College alumni, was often referred to as the “Oberlin Band,” and its members worked closely together. In the town of Taigu (or Taiku), Rowena taught in the boys’ boarding school that had been established by Mary Jane (Jennie) Rowland Clapp. Among her students was H.H. Kung (A.B. 1906), who later became China's Finance Minister (1933-1944). Kung grew extremely attached to Bird and counted her among the greatest influences in his life; he even pursued study in the United States after her death, inspired by his early studies with her. During the summers, Susan Rowena Bird worked at the mission's refuge for people addicted to opium in the mountain village of Liman.

Bird served as a missionary in Shanxi Province from 1890 to 1900. She had one furlough in 1897-1898, after which she returned to Taigu during the fall of 1898. Twenty months later, on July 31, 1900, Bird and the other missionaries were killed during the Boxer Uprising.

On May 14, 1903, the Memorial Arch commemorating the lives of the Oberlin Shansi Missionaries was dedicated on the Oberlin College campus. Located in Tappan Square, the Memorial Arch is inscribed with a list of names of those killed in the Boxer Rebellion, including that of Susan Rowena Bird.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Student file of Susan Rowena Bird (Alumni Records, RG 28/2)

Biographical sketch, author unknown, case file

Note written by Melissa Gottwald.