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When someone does something out of the ordinary, especially when they engage in a cause bigger than themselves for which they know they may give up their lives, curiosity begs to explore their motivations and what influences formed their decisions.

The year 2019 is also the bicentennial year of the first of the four Lathrop/Scudder missionaries to enter service to Ceylon. We honor them and their exceptional family with several articles in this December 2019 issue of the Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal.

The Lathrop sisters’ parents’ heritage begins with Rev. John1 Lothrop who fled from England’s persecutors and from his incarceration for his religion, arriving in Massachusetts in 1634. (In order to promote the accurate biographical data for Rev. John Lothrop and his family,

E. B. Huntington, who gives an insider view of the Lothrop/Lathrop families involved, notes: Samuel2 Lathrop married “Nov. 28, 1644, Elizabeth Scudder, who had been dismissed from the church in Boston Nov. 10, 1644, to remove her church relation to that in Barnstable. She is reported in Savage as a sister to that John Scudder who was in Barnstable in 1640

 In this issue of our online Journal, we continue our series of articles to clarify and correct the history of the three sons of Henry Scudder, Yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent (read Our Story begins with Henry Skudder (Scudder) Yeoman).

“Well, Christmas is over and the New Year almost upon us. I had my celebration in Vellore as I was on Obstetric and Gynecological duty. Before Christmas, everyone was busy getting things ready. The nurses were planning their ward decorations: there were rehearsals for the Christmas plays; and everyone was doing up mysterious parcels for at least two weeks before.