Guide to the Irven Paul and Catharine M. Paul Papers

Irven Paul was born May 14, 1894 in Fresno, California. He received a B.A. from the University of California in 1920, a B.D. from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1923, an S.T.M. from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1929, and a Ph.D. from Hartford Seminary Foundation (now Hartford Seminary) in 1946. He was ordained by San Francisco Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A (PCUSA) in 1923.

Catharine Frances Manny, was born January 8, 1895 in Galesburg, Illinois. She received a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1919 and earned an M.A. from New York University in 1944 and a Ph.D. in 1967. 

In February 1923, Paul and Manny were appointed missionaries by the Board of Foreign Missions of the PCUSA and assigned to the Chile Mission. Following their marriage in May of the same year, the Pauls departed for the mission field. While serving in Chile, the Pauls were particularly involved with Christian education and promoting the activities of the churches of the Presbytery of Chile. Catharine Paul worked with women and children. Irven Paul served as student pastor at the University of Concepcion for two years. His work with Chilean youth included Sunday schools, summer conferences, leadership training classes, and Christian Endeavor work. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Youth Movement which merged with the Latin American Union of Evangelical Youth in 1944. He served as secretary of the World Sunday School Association in South America for six years. 

In 1939, Catharine Paul and the Paul children, Helen (b. 1927) and Philip (b. 1934), returned to the United States on a special leave of absence. Irven Paul left the mission field in 1942 and returned to the United States to join his family. The Pauls resigned from active service in 1943. From 1942 to 1943, Irven Paul served as assistant minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York and, from 1944 to 1945, as acting minister of the Congregational Church in Terryville, Connecticut.

In 1946, the Board of Foreign Missions reappointed the Pauls to the Chile Mission, in response to the request of the Chile Mission and the Presbytery of Chile, with assignment to Union Theological Seminary, Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 1947 to 1949, Irven Paul served on the faculty as the mission's representative. At the close of the semester in December 1949, Paul returned to the United States. The Pauls resigned from active service in 1950.

In December 1950, Irven Paul returned to South America as a member of the Presbytery of Chile. With the presbytery's unanimous approval, he had accepted the call of the Temperley Church in Temperley, Buenos Aires. Paul had organized this church a few years earlier. During the next eighteen months, he also helped with the Scots Presbyterian Church in the area and taught at the seminary in Buenos Aires. In 1952, Paul returned to the United States to begin a professorship with the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Hartford, Connecticut.

Irven Paul was Professor of Latin America Studies at Hartford Seminary Foundation until 1962. He served as a trustee of the foundation in addition to his writing and lecturing activities. A Yankee Reformer in Chile: The Life & Works of David Trumbull, Paul's biographical narrative on the 19th century American Protestant missionary to Chile, was published by William Carey Library in 1973.

In 1966, while her husband was working on the life and work of David Trumbull, Catharine Paul was finishing her thesis on the educational work of Amanda Labarca (Chilean educator, diplomat, writer, and activist for women's rights). Amanda Labarca H.: Educator to the Women of Chile; The Work and Writings of Amanda Labarca H. in the Field of Education in Chile was published in 1968, a year after she received her Ph.D. from New York University's School of Education at the age of 72.

Catharine Paul died in 1983. In 1985, Irven Paul married Margaret Harris Ekstrom. He died on August 9, 1997 at the age of 103, survived by his two children, Helen and Philip.