Guide to the Yates Family Papers
Open for research.
Theodore M. Yates, MD, and Jean Kammerer Yates, RN, served as medical missionaries under the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the USA at the Hwai Yuan Station of the Kiangan Mission in China, 1923-1942.
Theodore M. Yates was born in England in 1894, the son of a Salvation Army officer who came to the United States in 1895. Yates attended Richmond Academy in Augusta, Georgia and earned his MD at the University of Georgia in 1919. He did his internship at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, where he met Jean Kammerer from Toronto, Canada, who was attending the Roosevelt Training School for Nurses. In 1922 the Yateses were married and in 1923 went to China. A son, James Kammerer Yates, was born on December 22, 1923, and a daughter, Christina Jean Yates, on October 20, 1926. In 1941, due to war conditions, Mrs. Yates and the children returned to the U.S., to be followed in 1942 by Dr. Yates on the S.S. Gripsholm. The Yates resigned in 1948.
The bulk of the Yates Family Papers consists of the letters of Dr. and Mrs. Yates to their relatives in the United States and Canada and to each other when they were apart. There are also several letters from other missionaries and Chinese workers. The correspondence provides a vivid picture of the life of a missionary family and the political, social and medical problems of missionary work in the turbulent China of the 1920s and 1930s.
SERIES 1: CORRESPONDENCE, 1922-1946, 1949-1950, 1954, UNDATED
SERIES 2: DIARY OF JEAN YATES, 1933
SERIES 3: MISCELLANY, 1923-1942, CIRCA 1980-1989, UNDATED
SERIES 4: PHOTOGRAPHS, UNDATED
The researcher should also consult Record Group 82, Board of Foreign Missions, Secretaries‚ Files, China Mission.
Collection processed and finding aid prepared: 1989
Glenn Colliver, Assistant Archivist
| Box | Folder | Description | |
| 1 | 1 | Finding Aid to Record Group 234 | |
| SERIES I: CORRESPONDENCE, 1922-1954 | |||
| 1 | 2 | 1922 | |
| 1 | 3 | 1923 January-September | |
| 1 | 4 | 1923 October-1924 November | |
| 1 | 5 | 1925 January-August | |
| 1 | 6 | 1925 September-December | |
| 1 | 7 | 1926 January-June | |
| 1 | 8 | 1926 July | |
| 1 | 9 | 1926 August | |
| 1 | 10 | 1926 September-December | |
| 1 | 11 | 1927 January-March | |
| 1 | 12 | 1927 April | |
| 1 | 13 | 1927 May-September | |
| 1 | 14 | 1927 December | |
| 2 | 1 | l928 January-March | |
| 2 | 2 | 1928 April-December | |
| 2 | 3 | 1929 | |
| 2 | 4 | 1930 | |
| 2 | 5 | 1931 | |
| 2 | 6 | 1932 | |
| 2 | 7 | 1933-1935 | |
| 2 | 8 | 1936 | |
| 2 | 9 | 1937 | |
| 2 | 10 | 1937 June-December (Robert J. McCandless, M.D.) | |
| 2 | 11 | 1938 | |
| 2 | 12 | 1939 | |
| 2 | 13 | 1940 | |
| 2 | 14 | 1941 January-April | |
| 3 | 1 | 1941 May-August | |
| 3 | 2 | 1941 September-November, undated | |
| 3 | 3 | 1942-1943 | |
| 3 | 4 | 1944-1946, 1949-1950, 1954, undated | |
| SERIES II: JEAN YATES' DIARY | |||
| 3 | 5 | Jean Yates' Diary, 1933 January-June | |
| SERIES III: MISCELLANY, 1922-1942, CIRCA 1980-1989, UNDATED | |||
| 3 | 6 | Travel Manual for Missionaries, 1923 | |
| 3 | 7 | Newsletters, 1939-1941 | |
| 3 | 8 | Reports, 1922, 1933, 1936-1937, 1940-1942, 1981, undated | |
| 3 | 9 | Notes for Deputational Talks, 1938, 1942, undated | |
| 3 | 10 | Miscellaneous Papers from Repatriation, 1942 | |
| 3 | 11 | Clippings, 1942 | |
| 3 | 12 | Official Chinese and Japanese Documents, 1931, 1940-1941, undated | |
| 3 | 13 | Tract and Letter in Chinese, undated | |
| 3 | 14 | Notes of Dr. Yates, circa 1980-1989 | |
| 3 | 15 | Leaflet of Pictures of Hwai Yuan, undated | |
| SERIES IV: PHOTOGRAPHS, UNDATED | |||
| 3 | 16 | Photographs, undated | |
| 3 | 17 | Photographs, undated | |
| 3 | 18 | Photographs, undated | |
| 3 | 19 | Medical Photographs, undated |