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Jeanette Charlotte Hulbert (1889-1978), American missionary, was born in 1889 on October 17th, Jeanette was the oldest of five children. Her sister Esther was third with brothers Roy Truman, Frederick Leo and Howard Hiram. Her father was a Methodist minister named Newell Eugene Hulbert who served in the North-East Ohio Conference and her mother was Emma Jane Hardy. Jeanette was only fourteen when her mother died and she, as the eldest, assumed considerable responsibility for the care of her siblings. In time, she went on to Ohio Wesleyan University and graduated in 1912. A bout of typhoid fever caused a nine month delay in her deployment, but by 1914 she was on her way to Korea as a missionary.

Jeanette’s years in Korea were spent teaching mathematics, Bible studies and science at Ewha College, later to become Ewha University, in Seoul. The year 1919 marked a tumultuous era in Korea as the country exerted its independence from Japan. Students from her college were jailed and being a Westerner became even more perilous than usual. She was sent home on furlough that year and used the time to complete a master’s degree in education at Columbia Teacher’s College and also attend classes at Union Theological Seminary. She returned to Korea and remained until 1940 when the threat of World War II loomed and forced an evacuation. Furloughs offered opportunities for additional education and she took advantage of this with more study at the University of Chicago and Chicago Theological School.

Jeannette traveled a third time to Korea in 1947 and worked there until the Korean War threatened; she was again evacuated in 1950. Following her years in Korea, Jeanette worked at the ACLU office in Cleveland and for the Women’s Society. Always, she continued to be active in church affairs with speaking engagements and presentations. In time, she moved to Brooks-Howell Home in Asheville, NC where she died on June 14, 1978. She chose to donate her body to Duke University Medical School. Eventually, her remains were cremated and her ashes scattered near the Memorial Tree at Brooks-Howell.

Esther Laura Hulbert (1894-1993), American Methodist Church missionary, served in Korea and Cuba for a total of thirty-eight years by the time of her retirement on July 1, 1961. She was born in Colebrook, Ohio, on September 17, 1894 to Newel Eugene Hulbert and Emma Jane Hardy Hulbert. Esther was the third of five siblings, two girls and three boys; both she and her older sister, Jeanette Charlotte Hulbert, became Methodist Episcopal Church missionaries with the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society. Her father was a minister and she was parsonage-raised with her sister Jeannette and their brothers. Esther was educated at Bellaire High School, graduating in 1912, and Ohio Wesleyan University from which she earned a BA in 1917. She completed a masters degree at Teachers College Columbia in 1930 with short courses at Kent State Normal (1919), University of Southern California (1935) and Chicago Theological Seminary (1937). Prior to becoming a missionary, she taught at Thompson High School, Willoughby High School and Madison High School — all in Ohio — and Bethesda High School at which she was both a teacher and principal.

Home church for Esther was Methodist Episcopal church, Geneva, Ohio where she was active as a Sunday School teacher, president of the Young Woman’s Missionary Society and Epworth League president. Later her home church was recorded as Methodist Church, Cienfuegos, Cuba. Esther was commissioned in 1923 and set sail for Korea in November of that year. While in Korea, Esther was at Ewha College where she was engaged in language study and teaching in Seoul at Ewha High School from 1923 to 1928. During those years, she also spent time in Pyenyang at Chung Eui School doing similar work. Esther remained in Korea until November of 1940 when she was evacuated via the S. S. Mariposa. In 1942, she was sent to Cienfuegos, Cuba where she remained, except when on furlough, until 1960 teaching at Eliza Bowman School.

Furloughs were taken from December, 1928-August, 1930, January, 1936-March, 1937, November, 1940-August, 1942, July, 1948-August, 1949 and June, 1954-September, 1956. Esther was in Cuba during the take-over by Fidel Castro. She served for a total of thirty-eight years. Her pre-retirement furlough beginning in 1960 included speaking engagements in Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio. Upon leaving full-time missions work, she settled in Cleveland where she moved into a municipal housing project and helped to register African-American voters to support the successful mayoral candidacy of Carl Stokes. In 1967, Esther moved to Brooks-Howell Home in Asheville, NC where she remained until her death on November 13, 1993. Like her sister Jeanette Charlotte Hulbert, Esther decided to donate her body to science. After death, her remains were taken to Bowman Gray Medical School, Wake Forest University. Later her body was cremated and the ashes spread around Brooks-Howell’s Memorial Tree.

Matthew Simpson Hughes (1863-1920) was a Methodist Episcopal Church minister and bishop. He was educated at Linsly Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia, and at the University of West Virginia. At the university, Hughes studied law and medicine, but did not graduate with a degree. Instead, he became the city editor of the Parkersburg Daily Journal.

In 1887, Hughes was ordained and joined the Iowa Conference, where his first appointment was to the Ewart circuit. A year later, he married Harriet Francis Wheeler. During the Spanish-American War, Hughes was chaplain of the First Minnesota Regiment.

Hughes held pastorates at Chestnut Street Church in Portland, Maine (1890- 1894); Wesley Church in Minneapolis (1894-1898); Independence Avenue Church in Kansas City, Missouri (1898-1908); and First Church in Pasadena, California (1908-1916). From 1908-1911 he was also a professor of theology at the Maclay College of Theology of the University of Southern California. In 1904, he was chosen as a fraternal delegate to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, meeting. In 1916 Hughes was elected bishop and assigned to the Portland, Oregon area. He died there at the end of his first quadrennium, on April 4, 1920.

Hughes published The Higher Ritualism, a collection of sermons, in 1907. He also wrote The Logic of Prohibition in 1915, as well as numerous articles in magazines.

John Gordon Howard (1899-1974), American bishop, college president and editor, was born to missionary parents in Tokyo on December 3, 1899. His father, Alfred Taylor Howard, was a bishop of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. He graduated from Otterbein College in 1922 with an A.B., Bonebrake Theological Seminary in 1925 with a B.D., and New York University in 1927 with an M.A. Licensed by the Miami Conference in 1924 and ordained in 1925, Howard served as Youth Director in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ for thirteen years (1927-1939).

Howard then spent five years as editor of Sunday School literature. In 1945 he was elected president of Otterbein College. During the next twelve years, he greatly strengthened that institution. On August 1, 1957, Howard was elected a bishop of The Evangelical United Brethren Church and assigned to the East Central Episcopal Area. After the merger with the Methodist Church he was assigned to the Philadelphia episcopal seat. He had two daughters with his first wife, Rhea McConaughy, who died in 1965. In 1967 he married Katherine Higgins Shannon. Howard died on December 24, 1974.