Althea Brown Edmiston
Althea M. Brown in academic regalia, from a 1902 publication.
Althea M. Brown, from a 1902 publication.
Born
Althea Maria Brown

December 17, 1874
Russellville, Alabama
DiedJune 10, 1937
Mutoto, Belgian Congo
NationalityAmerican
OccupationChristian missionary
Notable workfirst dictionary of the Bushong language

Althea Maria Brown Edmiston (December 17, 1874 – June 10, 1937) was an African-American teacher and Presbyterian missionary, working in the Belgian Congo for more than thirty years. She compiled the first dictionary and grammar for Bushong, the language of the Kuba Kingdom.

Early life

Althea Maria Brown was born in Russellville, Alabama,[1] one of the ten children of Robert Brown and Mary Suggs Brown. Her parents were emancipated from slavery as young adults. She was raised on her father's farm near Rolling Fork, Mississippi. She attended Fisk University,[2] beginning in 1892 and finishing her studies in 1901. She was the only woman speaker at the Fisk commencement in 1901. She underwent further training for mission work at the Chicago Training School for City and Foreign Missions.[3]

Career

In her youth, Brown lived and worked as a nurse in the household of a white family for two years. While she was a college student, she earned money as a cook, as a hairdresser, and as a summer school teacher. She taught at a one-room school in Pikeville, Tennessee. In 1901, she was commissioned as a missionary by the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Southern Presbyterian Church. She sailed for the Belgian Congo in August 1902.[4]

In the Congo she worked at the Ibanche mission station run by William Henry Sheppard, an African-American missionary. She taught school and Sunday school, and was matron of the girls' residence.[5] Their work was relocated to Luebo in 1904, after an uprising against the missionaries. Althea Brown Edmiston worked at other stations, including Bulape and Mutoto, with her husband. She reported on her work in missionary publications and to the Fisk University community.[6] In 1920-1921 she was on furlough in the United States, and gave a commencement address at her alma mater, Fisk University: "May it not be that some of you will offer yourselves to answer the call?" she suggested of a life in mission work. "Africa needs the very best trained men and women that can be found."[7][8] She was back in the United States again in 1924-1925 for medical care, and in 1935 to speak at the Missionary Conference of Negro Women in Indianapolis that year.[1]

Despite having no specialized linguistic training, Althea Brown Edmiston spent years creating the first dictionary and grammar of the local Bushong language, eventually published as Grammar and Dictionary of the Bushonga or Bakuba Language as Spoken by the Bushonga or Bakuba Tribe Who Dwell in the Upper Kasai District, Belgian Congo, Central Africa in 1932.[9] She also translated educational and liturgical materials into Bushong and Tshiluba, and recorded Kuba folklore, personally creating a small library of texts for her students to read in their own language.[1][10]

Personal life and legacy

Althea Brown married Alonzo Edmiston, a fellow African-American missionary, in 1905. They had two sons, Sherman and Alonzo, both born in the Congo region. Althea Brown Edmiston died in 1937, aged 62 years, in Mutoto, after several years with malaria and sleeping sickness.[11]

In Edmiston's memory, the Presbyterian Church in the United States established the Althea Brown Edmiston Memorial Fund in 1939. A biography of Edmiston, A Life for the Congo: The Story of Althea Brown Edmiston by Julia Lake Kellersberger, was published in 1947.[12] In 1975, Fisk University mounted an exhibit recalling Althea Brown Edmiston's life and work. The Edmiston Papers are archived at the Presbyterian Historical Society.[13][14] Another collection of her papers is held at Emory University.[11] Her story is still repeated in Presbyterian publications as an example of the work of African-American women in mission,[15] and she is often mentioned among the notable alumni of Fisk University.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Althea Brown Edmiston", Biographies, History of Missiology, Boston University.
  2. ↑ Loretta Long Hunnicutt, "Althea Brown Edmiston" in Susan Hill Lindley, Eleanor J. Stebner, eds. The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History (Westminster John Knox Press 2008): 68. ISBN 9780664224547
  3. ↑ Althea Brown Edmiston, "Missions in Congo Free State, Africa" The American Missionary (December 1908): 306-310.
  4. ↑ "Missionaries to Africa" The American Missionary (October 1902): 421-422.
  5. ↑ Joan R. Duffy, "Althea (Brown) Edmiston" in Gerald H. Anderson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (Wm. B. Eerdmans 1999): 195. ISBN 9780802846808
  6. ↑ "Fisk Woman Working with God on the 'Dark Continent'" Fisk University News (March 1921): 21-22.
  7. ↑ "Pilgrims of Three Centuries" Fisk University News (1920): 28.
  8. ↑ "A Testimonial of Appreciation of Mrs. Althea Brown Edmiston" Fisk University News (June 1921): 25-28.
  9. ↑ Althea Edmiston, Grammar and Dictionary of the Bushonga or Bukuba Languages as Spoken by the Bushonga or Bukuba Tribe Who Dwell in the Upper Kasai District, Belgian Congo, Central Africa (Luebo: Mission Press, 1932).
  10. ↑ Ira Dworkin, "Missionary Cultures: The American Presbyterian Congo Mission, Althea Brown Edmiston, and the Languages of the Congo" in Ira Dworkin, Congo Love Song: African American Culture and the Crisis of the Colonial State (University of North Carolina Press 2017). ISBN 9781469632711
  11. 1 2 Althea Brown Edmiston Papers, 1918-1981, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.
  12. ↑ Julia Lake Kellersberger, A Life for the Congo: The Story of Althea Brown Edmiston (Fleming H. Revell 1947).
  13. ↑ Lisa Jacobson, "Processing the Edmiston Papers" Presbyterian Historical Society blog (June 2, 2015).
  14. ↑ "Guide to the A. L. Edmiston Papers" Presbyterian Historical Society.
  15. ↑ "Witnesses for Justice" Presbyterians Today (June/July 2012).
  16. ↑ L. M. Collins, "Fisk's Mission Carries New Light to Africa" The Tennessean (January 16, 1977): 18. via Newspapers.com
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