Gertrude A. Simon (1900-1966) Collection

The bulk of this collection contains Gertrude Simon’s correspondence with her family — her parents and her brothers, Henry and Martin — friends and officials of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Board for Foreign Missions for the period from the early 1930s to 1966. This correspondence can be subdivided into three main periods: Gertrude’s missionary work in mainland China (1926–1950), her work in Hong Kong with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (1950–1963), and the last three years of her life when she joined the Christian Chinese Lutheran Mission (1963–1966). Particularly intense was the correspondence in the last few years before Gertrude’s separation from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in Hong Kong. There is also correspondence (letters and post cards) between Gertrude and her coworkers and with other members of her extended family, including her “adopted” children and students, as well as correspondence between her brothers, especially Henry Simon, and Gertrude’s best students, Peter Chang and Andrew Chiu, Gertrude's main coworker, Martha Boss, and others. The collection also contains correspondence pertaining to the estate of the deceased Gertrude Simon (personal and official), the Simon and (Olive) Gruen Memorial Fund, the continuation of Gertrude’s missionary work in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and other Asian countries. Gertrude Simon’s life and work is also represented by published materials, including two prospectuses dedicated to the 5th and 10th anniversaries of the Gertrude Simon Lutheran College in Hong Kong, in the English and Chinese languages. Another part of the collection contains unpublished accounts by Gertrude’s coworkers, friends, and family about her personality, attitude, outlook and zealous missionary work in Asia, including the manuscript of a book dedicated to Gertrude’s life and mission written by her brother Henry Simon.

In addition, the Gertrude Simon Collection features correspondence and published materials related to the activities of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in Hong Kong and the Lutheran Church—Hong Kong Synod for the period from 1962 through 1987, as well as a general folder on Christianity in Asia and a folder on Martin Simon’s service for the Lutheran Church in the U.S., China and Hong Kong from 1926 through 1960.

The collection contains both typed and handwritten letters on various types of paper, including a Chinese type of paper; most of them are written in English, but there are also a few pieces of writings in Chinese, including a poster and brochures.

The other part of the collection features Gertrude Simon’s eight personal diaries written in the period from 1945 through 1959 and a large sub-collection of photographs — a total of 1000 photos of various sizes in two boxes; the majority of the photos are black and white taken in the US, China, Hong Kong and Japan, spanning the period from 1936 through the mid-1970s. A substantial part of the photograph collection features Martha Boss’s work in Hong Kong.

NOTES

The correspondence part of the collection arrived at Concordia Historical Institute in no discernible original order. It was arranged by topics and following the chronology of the events and activities pertaining to the missionary work of Gertrude Simon and her coworkers, members of her family and officials from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

The photographs arrived in three well documented albums, which made possible the preservation of their original order for the most part. The photographs were arranged and described by Bernice Malec.