Guide to the Yates Family Papers

Descriptive Summary

Title

Yates Family Papers

Inclusive Dates

1922-198_

Bulk Dates

1922-1954

Call Number

RG 234

Creator(s)

Yates family

Quantity

1.50 cubic feet

Language

Materials primarily in English with some material in Chinese and Japanese

Restrictions on Access

Collection open for research

Repository

Presbyterian Historical Society, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 USA

Biographical Note / Administrative History

Biographical Note

Theodore M. Yates, MD, and Jean Kammerer Yates, RN, served as medical missionaries under the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the USA at the Hwai Yuan Station of the Kiangan Mission in China, 1923-1942.

Theodore M. Yates was born in England in 1894, the son of a Salvation Army officer who came to the United States in 1895. Yates attended Richmond Academy in Augusta, Georgia and earned his MD at the University of Georgia in 1919. He did his internship at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, where he met Jean Kammerer from Toronto, Canada, who was attending the Roosevelt Training School for Nurses. In 1922 the Yateses were married and in 1923 went to China. A son, James Kammerer Yates, was born on December 22, 1923, and a daughter, Christina Jean Yates, on October 20, 1926. In 1941, due to war conditions, Mrs. Yates and the children returned to the U.S., to be followed in 1942 by Dr. Yates on the S.S. Gripsholm. The Yates resigned in 1948.

Collection Overview

The bulk of the Yates Family Papers consists of the letters of Dr. and Mrs. Yates to their relatives in the United States and Canada and to each other when they were apart. There are also several letters from other missionaries and Chinese workers. The correspondence provides a vivid picture of the life of a missionary family and the political, social and medical problems of missionary work in the turbulent China of the 1920s and 1930s.

Organization and Arrangement

SERIES 1: CORRESPONDENCE, 1922-46, 1949-50, 1954, N.D.
SERIES 2: DIARY OF JEAN YATES, 1933
SERIES 3: MISCELLANY, 1923-42, C. 1980S, N.D.
SERIES 4: PHOTOGRAPHS, N.D.

Related Material

Administrative Information

Processing Information

Collection processed and finding aid prepared: 1989
Glenn Colliver, Assistant Archivist

Catalog Headings

The following headings have been used to index the description of this collection in the society’s electronic catalog.

Corporate Subject

Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Kiangan Mission.

Topical Subject

Presbyterian Church Missions China.

Missions, Medical China.

Missionaries.

Medicine Practice China.

Nursing China.

Genre-form

Diaries. aat

Photographs. aat

Newsletters. aat

Clippings. aat

Personal Added Name

Yates, Theodore M., 1894-

Yates, Jean Kammerer, 1897-1985.

Collection Inventory

Box	Folder	Description

1	1	Finding Aid to Record Group 234

		SERIES I: CORRESPONDENCE, 1922-1954

1	2	1922
1	3	January-September 1923
1	4	October 1923-November 1924
1	5	January-August 1925
1	6	September-December 1925
1		January-June 1926
1	8	July 1926
1	9	August 1926
1	10	September-December 1926
1	11	January-March 1927
1	12	April 1927
1	13	May-September 1927
1	14	December 1927

2	1	January-March l928
2	2	April-December 1928
2	3	1929
2	4	1930
2	5	1931
2	6	1932
2	7	1933-1935
2	8	1936
2	9	1937
2	10	June-December 1937 (Robert J. McCandless, M.D.)
2	11	1938
2	12	1939
2	13	1940
2	14	January-April 1941

3	1	May-August 1941
3	2	September-November 1941, n.d.
3	3	1942-1943
3	4	1944-1946, 1949-1950, 1954, n.d.

		SERIES II: JEAN YATES' DIARY

3	5	Jean Yates' Diary, January-June 1933

		SERIES III: MISCELLANY, 1922-1942, 1980's, n.d.

3	6	Travel Manual for Missionaries, 1923
3	7	Newsletters, 1939-1941
3	8	Reports, 1922, 1933, 1936-1937, 1940-1942, 1981, n.d.
3	9	Notes for Deputational Talks, 1938, 1942, n.d.
3	10	Miscellaneous Papers from Repatriation, 1942
3	11	Clippings, 1942
3	12	Official Chinese and Japanese Documents, 1931, 1940-1941, n.d.
3	13	Tract and Letter in Chinese, n.d.
3	14	Notes of Dr. Yates, ca. 1980's
3	15	Leaflet of Pictures of Hwai Yuan, n.d.

		SERIES IV: PHOTOGRAPHS

3	16	Photographs, n.d.
3	17	Photographs, n.d.
3	18	Photographs, n.d.
3	19	Medical Photographs, n.d.

Print

You are here

Guide to the Yates Family Papers

Creator(s)