Missionary Frank Scudder in Japan and Hawaii
Edited from various sources by Jack Scudder Gillmar Member of the Board of the Scudder Association Foundation
© Scudder Association Foundation
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The early immigrant Scudders and missionary-minded Scudders featured in this issue had unique opportunities to engage with people of other races, ethnicities, cultures, religions and politics that were different than their own. They moved to different countries or colonies where they were considered the strangers by those who were already present.
John Scudder grew up in western Kent, England, between the power centers of British political and ecclesiastical might at London and Canterbury. In America, John was an early settler of four communities that were within five to ten years of establishment or less. By being in the right places to observe key figures in the struggle for basic religious and civil rights in both countries
Not much is known about Samuel3 Scudder, (known hereafter as Samuel I), oldest son of John2 and grandson of Thomas1 (T). He does not appear in the baptismal records of the Salem Church so he must have been born about 1643 in Salem, Massachusetts because his younger brother John3 was born in 1645 according to his marriage record, and his parents joined the church in 1647. His three sisters’ baptismal records are after that date.
In the 1880s, there were so many Scudder missionaries in India, that family members began being sent to mission fields elsewhere. Doremus Scudder M.D., D.D., 1858–1942, was in Niigata, Japan from 1885 to 1889
An early writer on Japan said the people were as different from us as if they had dropped from the planet Mars. It is interesting to note that in Japan a common word for foreigner is “i-jin” – the Different Man. If they seem different to us, is it strange if we seem different to them? We write in horizontal lines, they in perpendicular columns; we read from left to right; they from right to left; we say, “The man went to Yokohama”; they say, “Yokohama to went man”. Using the saw and plane, we push the tool from us; they draw it toward them. On the summit of Fujiyama there is a bubbling spring of water. What, are even the mountains upside-down. Which of us really is the different man?
This article is the continuation of the story of Dr. Ida Scudder and her founding and development of a medical college to train women doctors in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, South India. 1,000 Years in Thy Sight was written by D.V. Scudder, the wife of Dr. Ida’s nephew, Dr. John Scudder III, who served as a missionary with her husband in Ranipet from 1929-1935. Please refer to The Scudder Journal (Vol.3 No.1, Winter 2021) for the first excerpt of Dr. Ida Scudder’s missionary service and the story of the Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital.
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