Guide to the Goheen Family Papers

John Lawrence and Jane Lea Corbett Goheen served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as lay foreign missionaries in Western India. John was born in 1883 in Kolhapur, West India, where his parents were stationed as Presbyterian missionaries. At an early age he was sent to Wooster, Ohio to receive his education. He graduated from Wooster Academy in 1902, and from the University of Wooster in 1906. From 1920 to 1921, he was enrolled in special courses in agriculture at the State Agricultural College in Davis, California. In 1937 Wooster honored him with a Doctor of Law degree for outstanding accomplishment in the mission field.

Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1886, Jane Lea Corbett was the daughter of Hunter Corbett, who served as a missionary in Chefoo, China. She received her early education in that country and her college training in the United States, graduating from the University of Wooster in 1907. After teaching high school for a year in Lima, Ohio, she married John Goheen in 1908 at the age of twenty-two. In 1910 Mr. and Mrs. Goheen accepted an appointment from the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions for missionary service in Sangli, Bombay, India.

Upon arriving in India in 1911, Mr. Goheen was placed in charge of the Sangli Boys School. He developed the school into an Industrial and Agricultural School, and instituted an extension service -- the Sangli Moveable School -- which brought improved agricultural techniques to the villages surrounding Sangli. From 1930 to 1934, John Goheen acceded to the request of the chief of Ichalkaranji, a neighboring state, to administer the state for him while he was absent in Europe. He used the position to implement much needed reforms and to improve the relationship between the church and the state. In 1944, after a long term of administrative service as executive secretary of the West India Mission, John Goheen was elected to the principalship of Allahabad Agricultural Institute, Allahabad, North India. In September, 1947 he returned to the United States for specialized medical treatment in New York. He died a year later at the age of 64.

While John Goheen was administering the Industrial and Agricultural School, Jane Goheen was primarily responsible for teaching academic and Bible classes. After Mr. Goheen's appointment to the Allahabad Agricultural Institute, Jane Goheen taught in the school of home economics where Christian girls were trained to teach the women of India better ways of living and caring for their families. During the last few years of service, she worked with the women of Kolhapur and surrounding villages, organizing them more effectively for the work of the church. She retired in 1952 and died in 1977.