Ward, William Earl Dodge, 1884-1977

Son, grandson, brother, husband, nephew, uncle, and cousin of missionaries, William Earl Dodge Ward was born in Newton Center, Massachusetts in 1884 to Langdon Storer Ward, Treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Laura Arixene Bliss Ward, herself a missionary at a young age. Ward, known to family and friends as Earl, spent the first twenty-two years of his life in Massachusetts. His father died in 1895 when Earl was not quite 11 years old, leaving Laura Ward with seven children (an eighth having died earlier) to raise on a small income. Laura Ward had made a commitment to her husband to educate the children - all of them, including the girls - and she followed through on the promise, sending Earl and his brothers to Amherst College (Earl and his twin Mark Hopkins Ward were graduates in the Class of 1906) and daughters Mary, Ruth, and Laura to Mt. Holyoke College. Laura herself moved to Amherst to be near her children.

All but one of the close-knit Ward children became missionaries. When Earl's turn came, he went first to the mission station in Harpoot, Turkey in 1909, serving as treasurer of Euphrates College and the Harpoot mission. As his letters home testify, the position was not a good match, and Earl returned to the U.S. in 1913. In 1915 he married missionary Dora (or Doreen) Judd Mattoon (1883-1979), whom he had met while in Harpoot, where Doreen taught in schools and was a touring missionary (supervising native Bible women) in the area until her marriage in 1915.

The YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) next posted Earl and Dora to India, which seems to have been a happier match. The couple worked in Calcutta from 1916-1922 and again from 1930-1932, and in Bombay from 1922-1929. In 1932 Earl and Dora were posted for six months in Egypt before being recalled to the U.S. due to funding problems during the Great Depression. Upon his return to the U.S., Earl then worked for the YMCA in New Hampshire. After his retirement in 1952 he moved back to Amherst and became involved with alumni affairs at Amherst College as a devoted and active member of the Class of 1906.

One of Earl Ward's hobbies was photography, and the collection includes several hundred photographs documenting his work and surroundings in both Turkey and India.

Earl Ward died in 1977, and Dora Ward in 1979.

Other members of the Ward family represented in the collection include, but are not limited to, the following:

Box 4, folder 4 contains a useful letter (April 21, 1968) from Earl Ward to a younger family member outlining the lives and careers of his parents, grandparents, and siblings.

From the guide to the William Earl Dodge Ward (AC 1906) Family Papers, 1791-1977, 1870-1935, (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections)