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Roy Stinson Smyres (1895-1994) was born on November 17, 1895 in Mount Vernon, Indiana, to Luther Robert and Mary Hannah Brown Smyres. Nell Smyres was his only sister. Smyres grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana, attending local public schools and the local Methodist Episcopal Church. At the age of six he bought his first camera, a two-dollar Kodak Brownie, which began a life-long hobby that would create a large global image archive.

Smyres attended Northwestern University and Garrett Theological Seminary (then Garrett Biblical Institute), receiving his B.A. in 1921 and M.A. in 1922. He left during his junior year of college to go to Africa for one year as secretary to missionary John McKendree Springer. Roy sailed from New York City to Africa on the S.S. City of Glasglow in December 1916. The one year appointment stretched into three years.

Roy was stationed at Elisabethville, and later Kambove, Belgian Congo, where he taught at the night school when not traveling with Springer. He was appointed the assistant secretary of the Congo Mission Conference.

In 1917 Smyres was received into membership by the Central New York Annual Conference of The Methodist Episcopal Church. He was ordained under the missionary rule by the Congo Mission Conference, with Bishop Eben, Johnson officiating in 1919. During that same year, Smyres journeyed with Bishop Johnson across West Africa to map out future mission stations. He sailed back to the United States on October 5, 1919 to resume his college work at Northwestern University.

Roy and Esther Montgomery of Sioux City, Iowa, were married on September 7, 1921. They eventually raised five children: Peg, Richard, Mary, Bob, and Ruth. The following year Roy was appointed to be the minister for the Forest Home Chapel in Ithaca, New York. At the same time he enrolled at Cornell University for a doctoral degree.

In 1924, Roy and Esther Smyres became missionaries for the Methodist Episcopal Church and returned to the Congo, where they worked for five years. Most of their time was spent in the bush country. Roy served as principal of the Congo Institute, district superintendent for the Elisabethville-Luba District, and treasurer of the mission.

They returned to the United States in 1929. Upon his return and in order to make financial ends meet Roy taught at Ithaca High School. He also worked at Associated Gas and Electric Company. Ministerial appointments for the Central New York Annual Conference included Forest Home Chapel (1931-1936), Horseheads (1937-1940), and Montour Falls (1941-1945). Roy became an instructor at Cazenovia Seminary in 1940, and served as treasurer of the conference from 1941 to 1945.

It was during this period of ministry that Smyres took his first around the world trip in 1957. He retired from the board in 1964.

The year after his retirement from the Board of Missions, Roy and and Esther Smyres volunteered to become missionaries to India and Nepal. They also traveled around the world for a second time, and that trip resulted in the production of more than six thousand photographic images.

Smyres remained active in church work on many different levels after retirement. He spoke, wrote, and freelanced as a photographer for the Mission Board and other religious organizations from 1966 to 1973.

Esther Montgomery Smyres died on July 2, 1972. Despite the loss, Roy Smyres later took his third trip around the world.

Mary Fraley and Roy Smyres were married on October 13, 1973. Smyres continued freelance photography and journalism for various religious organizations. The Protestant Church in Kathmandu in Nepal called Smyres to be an interim pastor for three months in 1974.

Upon his return from Nepal in 1975, Smyres developed a slide lecture about Nepal, and proceeded to speak about the country across the United States. During that same year, Smyres made his fourth and final around the world trip. It was Mary's first. Mary and Roy Smyres settled in Cayuga Heights, New York, until 1992, when they moved to nearby Bethany Manor.

Nell Smyres died on November 19, 1977, at the age of eighty-six

Eventually, Smyres visited eighty-five different countries during his lifetime. Many of these trips were to visit mission centers of the United Methodist Church. From the late 1970s and early 1980s, , Smyres focused on writing and publishing, and began to write his autobiography. He also continued to keep an active speaking calendar until 1981.

Smyres continued to be active in church work until 1989. He died on September 7, 1994, at 98. His final act of charity was manifested by donating his body to medical science.

K. James Stein (1929-?), a theologian and professor. Stein was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the son of Gustav and Anna (Sommer) Stein. He was educated in the rural areas of the Red River Valley. Stein acquired a temporary teaching certification following high school and taught in rural schools of Pembina County, ND from 1947-1950. Stein received his bachelor's degree at Westmar College in Iowa (1953). He attended seminary at Evangelical Theological Seminary of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in Naperville, Illinois. Subsequently he received a masters of sacred theology and his PhD at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. His dissertation title was "Church Unity Movements in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ until 1946" Stein married Loretta Bahr of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Ordained as an elder in 1956, Stein served appointments in the Dakota Conference in Kidder (1952), Casselton- Chaffee (1953), and at Patterson Christ in New Jersey (1956). Prior to finishing his PhD at Union (1965), Stein became a Professor of Church History at Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS) in Ilinois in 1960 and became a dean at the seminary in 1972. In 1973, while serving as president of ETS, Stein oversaw its merger with Garrett Seminary and served as the first dean of the new Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Stein retired in 1995, continuing to function as a "senior scholar" at Garrett-Evangelical.

Stein numerous multiple articles, and two books, "Phillip Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch" (1986) and "Spiritual Guides for the 21st Century: Faith Stories of the Protestant Reformers" (2000).

Ralph T. Templin (1896-1984), an American missionary, educator, publisher, and social activist, married Lila Horton in 1920. Templin was a missionary in India from 1925 to 1940.

While working in India, Templin created a cooperative education method that allowed senior boys to help build various structures for local villages.

Templin was a founding member of the Peacemakers' movement, after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. When he returned to the United States, he continued Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence in all areas of his active ministry. Templin was the director of the School for Living, Suffern, New York from 1941 to 1945. Later he became the professor of sociology at Central State University, at Wilberforce, Ohio, from 1948 to 1968. Central State University was historically black, and Templin was the first white faculty member.

In 1954 he was the first white clergyperson to be received in full connection within the Central Jurisdiction. Another expression of his social activism was his fast to protest suppression of Puerto Rican independence nationalist movement.

Other avenues that Templin used to promote his belief in social justice included a refusal to pay taxes, did not register for the draft during World War II, and refused to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy era. He published, Democracy and Non-Violence, in 1965. Templin died in 1984.

Lucretia Rose Shearouse Thomason (1937-2001), American United Methodist layperson, was born to Herbert Samuel and Eula Mary Bennett Shearouse in Brooks County, Georgia, on March 2, 1937. She lived and worked in Georgia, Florida and in Virginia. During her career in education, she taught students from the elementary through the graduate level. Thomason earned degrees in English (B.A. 1958) and Education (M.A.T. 1973) from Emory University and the University of Florida (Ed.D. 1979). Thomason is the author of professional and other articles, poetry, fiction, and a memoir.

Thomason was an active layperson in the general, jurisdiction, annual conference and local church levels. When she volunteered to serve on the many different boards, agencies and various ministries confronting the church it was a time of great social change, especially the Women’s Movement. It is in this area that Thomason found her voice for change within the United Methodist Church. Thomason served as an officer on both the General Commission on the Status of Women (COSROW) and United Methodist Women Caucus(UMWC). Her stint at COSROW lasted from 1976-1980 where she served as vice-president, Chair of the Task Force for Women and Planning Committee and member on both the Nominating and Legislative Committees. It was during this time that Thomason developed a close, lifelong relationship with then General Secretary Nancy Grissom Self.

Thomason, with Judy Leaming-Elmer created and organized the United Methodist Women’s Caucus (UMWC) in 1971 as a result feeling frustrated at their standing as both women and clergy spouses within the denomination. As a result of their meeting and close friendship, a formidable force for women’s rights crashed upon the shores of United Methodism. By 1972, the United Methodist Women’s Caucus was organized which pushed and resulted in major role changes for women’s roles within the denomination on all levels. This was accomplished through the various levels of the United Methodist Connection which is made manifest in the legislative changes adopted by various General Conferences of this time period. As an effect of her work with COSROW and UMWC, Thomason was invited in 1978 to serve on the Board of Higher Education and Ministries’ Commission to Study the Itineracy in order to speak on the issues facing contemporary clergy wives’ concerns and frustrations dealing with the appointment process that required many moves and larger parsonage related matters.

Rose was married for forty-two years and, with her husband, the Reverend Robert Thomason. They have two sons, Mark and Bryan, and seven grandchildren. Rose Thomason died on April 8, 2001.

Mellony Turner (1901-1949), Methodist missionary, was born on April 9, 1901 at Erin, New York. Turner graduated in 1919 from the Cazenovia Seminary located in Cazenovia, New York. In 1924, Turner began to teach at the American School for Girls in Lovetch, Bulgaria for the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1930 she had became the principal of the school.

During World War II, Turner was able to continue teaching at the school. Her problems became worse after the war when the Communists took over the country. The official communist paper of Bulgaria, Rabotnichesko Delo, repeatedly mocked Turner and her work in the paper.

Forced out of Bulgaria, Turner relocated to Athens, Greece, and taught at Pierce College. After her departure from Bulgaria, false accusations of espionage were made against her after the torture of fifteen Bulgarian Methodist pastors with whom she had closely worked. Turner never returned to Bulgaria.

On Sunday, November 20, 1949, Mellony was scheduled to give a missionary message at Baldwinsville, New York, Methodist Church. On the way to the church a truck hit her and her father, W. Cleon Turner, a Methodist minister, and both were killed instantly. Turner is buried with her father and mother on a hilltop in Cato, New York.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1867, Laura Marsden White (1867-1937) was a missionary to China for about 43 years of her life. Her work there included teaching, translating, writing, editing a magazine, and organizing schools.

Before her work as a missionary, White taught in public schools in Philadelphia for five years, then attended Wellesley and Chicago Training School, graduating in 1890 with a B.H.

She sailed for China in 1891 under the auspices of the Philadelphia branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and taught school in Chinkiang. Then in 1907 she moved to Nanking, where she was given the task of turning the school there into a college. In 1912, the first building for the junior college in Nanking was dedicated. In 1915, this school merged with several different denominational mission institutions to become Ginling College.

White was chosen in 1912 by the Christian Literature Society in China to edit The Woman's Messenger, one of the first missionary literary projects developed for women. In 1915, she moved to Shanghai to work full-time with the Christian Literature Society. White retired from mission work in 1934, and died in 1937.

Melville Owens Wiliams (1904-1995) was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, to Meville Owens and Mary Louise Codd Willams. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1924, an Master of Science degree in sociology and religion from Vanderbilt University in 1929, and an Doctor of Education from Union Theological Seminary in 1936. He married Annie Lee Young in August of 1926, and they had two children: G. Melville and Anne W. (later Craig).

Willaims spent his early years in education, serving as the chaplain for the Virginia Industrial School in Maidens (1924-1925), and then as a teacher at Emory University Academy, in Oxford, Georgia (1926-1928). In 1929 the Williams family moved to China where he taught sociology. They remained there until 1940. In 1942, Williams was ordained in the Virginia Conference of the Methodist church, receiving his full connection in 1945. The same year he was ordained Williams was appointed secretary of Missionary Personnel, a position he held until the merger in 1968. From 1964 until 1968 he was Chairman of the Commission on world Mission under the National Student Christian Federation. After his retirement from the Board of Missions, Williams worked with the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations (COEMAR), a cooperative effort with the Presbyterian Church, USA. In this capacity he and his wife traveled to Africa, Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. They retired to Ohio in 1985.

Herbert Cookman Withey (1873-1937) was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on June 8, 1873. At twelve, he went with his parents, Amos E. and Irene Withey, to the interior of Angola, with the original Bishop William Taylor party in 1885. From his early youth he, like his parents, was devoted to mission work. Withey combined evangelistic, educational, and industrial service in his Christian ministry to the Angolans. He learned the local languages and translated Pilgrims Progress, the catechism, the Discipline, the Psalms, and the New Testament into those languages. At the time of his death on February 9, 1937, he was working on a translation of the New Testament.

Douglas Dutro Woodard (1916-2007), an educator, attended the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. During World War II he served four years in the United States Army in the Pacific. He received a B.A. from Brigham Young University and in 1948 an M.A. from Georgetown University. Woodard taught U.S. and world history in secondary schools for eleven years in Arlington County, Virginia, one year in Petersburg, Alaska, and many years in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Joshua York (1794-1884) was a lay preacher in the Methodist Episcopal and Wesleyan (Great Britain) churches. As a young teen he became a local preacher in the British Wesleyan Conference. He was also a Sunday School teacher, trustee, and steward in his local church.

York married Elizabeth Parker shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1841. They had one daughter, Mary Jane (? - 1903).

Joshua York continued as a local preacher once he arrived in the U. S. and was actively involved in the planning of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Madison Avenue and East 126th Street. He was also instrumental with the ministry of the Harlem.

Besides being a local preacher York was also a farmer and involved in real estate. He moved to Staten Island in 1846, New York City in 1850, and Harlem in 1853. York, his wife, and daughter are buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.