An Introduction to the Photo Collection of Rev. Carter D. Holton Part II
In July 2017 I received a letter from Mrs. Maggie Hale and Mr. Mingtao Zhao, both work for the Dept. of Digital Sources Service of Widener Library of Harvard University which informed me that they would like to upload my work on the photo notes of the Rev. Holton’s collection to the databank of the visible sources of Harvard University. They also wish me to work out the caption titles for the photo collections of the Carter Holton. Given there is kind of inaccurate among the notes and annotation which I had made during the period of 2011 to 2015, moreover, it is a considerable tough job to work out the captions for all more than 5100 pieces of the photos in the Holton’s collection, I suggested to Mrs. Hale and Mr. Zhao that I wish to come to Harvard University again for a thoroughly revision and completion of the caption titles for the photo collection before they upload my work to the Harvard University’s website. For this aim I proposed to the Harvard-Yenching Institute for a grant for the library research. My application to this grant was approved in October 2017 and I came to Cambridge in the middle of February 2018. Nevertheless, through three months’ hard working I have revised the notes for this photo collection several times, and have completed the caption titles for all 5100 more pieces of the photos. Add up these jobs, I have transferred the notes or annotation of this photo collection from word documental formation into Microsoft Access Database Formation. Now, finally I am released from this intense work which has occupied my whole mind for whole three months, even before that longer than ten years’ time for this research project.
Concerning the contents of the more than 5100 pieces of the photos in the Holton’s Photo Collection numbered 10001 to 15101 (the actual number is bigger than 15101 because some numbers have more than one images), there are only less than 200 pieces of the photos having some brief notes hand-written by Rev. Carter Holton when he was alive. The remained more than 4900 pieces of the photos have no comments and notes at all. So majority photos in which you cannot find any clues of date, place, and concrete content information such as figure, event, background etc. Hence, the ambiguity or the unclearance was existed in the early stage of the photo research. Dr. Raymond Lum once told me that some American scholar did a primary survey to these negatives of the photo collection, and gave out a general hint for the Carter Holton’s photo collection. However, such a hint also is too ambiguity and too general that they could not be treated as the authentic notes or comments. For example, concerning the location, most of the photos were marked as “Gansu and Qinghai”, and the date was marked as “1927-1941”. Some information provided was rather misleading, for example, the photos on the Tu people in Qinghai were regarded as the Dongxiang Muslim people in Gansu. Anyhow, the blankness of most of the photos in noting, commenting and explanation make the work to supply a photo notes and annotation based on the evident or academic investigation is an extremely difficult task for any scholars who will tackle this job of giving explanation and comments. I decided to start making photo notes from the existing materials available first. I read the brief scraps written by Rev. Carter Holton over nearly 200 photos, and also read the articles of the Christian Mission Weekly Magazine’s all issues which are related with Rev. Carter D. Holton and Lora N. Holton. After reading all materials which I had collected from the Weekly Magazine of C&MA (Christian and Mission Alliance) and other sources, I composed a bio-note of Rev. Carter D. Holton in 2012, and sent it to Mrs. Lora Jean Heurlin, the young daughter of the Holtons for comments and suggestion. In a few weeks, Mrs. Lora J. Heurlin replied me with her suggestion and advices for a revising.
After that I extensively read more issues of the Weekly Magazine of Christian & Mission Alliance which related with the missionary colleagues of Rev. Carter Holton and Mrs. Lora Holton such as Rev. Calven Snyder and his wife Pheobe Snyder, Rev. Charles Notson and his wife Elizabeth Notson, Rev. Marion Griebenow and his wife Blanche Griebenow, Rev. William Ruhl and his wife, Rev. Thomas Mosley and his wife, Rev. Edwin Carlson and his wife, Rev. Albert Fesmire and his wife, Rev. Robert Ekvall and his wife, and other missionaries who worked in the missionary stations of Tibetan-Gansu border region not only Christian & Mission Alliance, but also Lanzhou station and Xining station of the China Inland Church. So I read and collect more articles and information related with Rev. Carter Holton and his life.
Before that, namely in the early Spring of 2009 when I was a guest professor in Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, USA I found a few hours’ visible documentary video taken by Rev. Carter Holton on the website of the Himalaya Mountain Project in Cambridge University, Britain, in it there were contents showing Salar Muslims and mosques, Hui Islam, Dongxiang Muslims, Tibetan Lama Buddhism, Lama monasteries and Tibetan Buddhist rituals, Tu Lama Buddhism and monastery, the Taoism in Gansu and the Han Chinese religions in Qinghai and Gansu border areas. The academic website of the Himalaya Mountain Project has a voice recording on the video explained and commented by Rev. Charles Notson, a good friend and missionary colleague of Rev. Carter Holton. I reported this video film taken by Rev. Holton to the Harvard-Yenching Institute as well as Mrs. Lora Jean Heurlin. After the Harvard-Yenching Institute got contacts with Cambridge University, it was known that this video record was donated by Myrtle Ruth [Holton] Dillon, the elder daughter of Rev. Carter Holton, to Cambridge University. Myrtle Ruth was born in Hechow (Hezhou or Linxia today) in 1927, four years older than her young sister Lora Jean Heurlin. After she grew up, she joined Christian Salvation Army organization and went to Japan for missionary work in the early of 1950. After having stayed in Japan for two dozen years she retired and returned to the America. Two daughters of the Holtons have their own big families, as they grew to the old age (Myrtle passed away in February 2016, and Lora Jean is 87 years old now and she is not in good health after a medical operation on her heart as to my knowledge; later on I was informed on August 3 that Mrs. Lora Jean Heurlin passed away on June 21, 2018 in Colorado State), they live far away each other, and not often keep contacts. Although they were born in Northwest China, they left Qinghai and Gansu when they were in childhood and went to Yantai (Chefoo in the Republic) of Shandong to study in the church school of the Inland China Church. Before the breaking out of the Pearl Port Attack, they were enforced coming back to the America for studies, and have never return to China afterward. Therefore, they could not have a profound understand and the memory to the missionary lives of their parents in the region of Qinghai and Gansu, Northwest China. The author once went to Colorado Springs City, Colorado State, especially to meet Lora Jean Heurlin for a short visit in 2012, and found that she just knew something about her childhood life in Shunhua (Xunhua) and some recalling for her parents’ life in China, no other materials or oral narrative could be recorded because as the Communist Army was approaching to Hezhou (Linxia) in August 1949, Rev. Carter Holton and Lora Holton left their home in Hezhou so hurry that they could only carry two luggage with them and boarded on a plane by Sweden which tried specially for evacuating the western missionaries in the last flight in Lanzhou, Gansu Province before the Communist China was founded. Probably all the notes, diary, correspondence, and other materials were lost in this unexpected hasty retreat from Hezhou (Hechow) that time. All these disadvantages conduce to the vast difficult for us in studying these photos and working over the photo notes.After that I extensively read more issues of the Weekly Magazine of Christian & Mission Alliance which related with the missionary colleagues of Rev. Carter Holton and Mrs. Lora Holton such as Rev. Calven Snyder and his wife Pheobe Snyder, Rev. Charles Notson and his wife Elizabeth Notson, Rev. Marion Griebenow and his wife Blanche Griebenow, Rev. William Ruhl and his wife, Rev. Thomas Mosley and his wife, Rev. Edwin Carlson and his wife, Rev. Albert Fesmire and his wife, Rev. Robert Ekvall and his wife, and other missionaries who worked in the missionary stations of Tibetan-Gansu border region not only Christian & Mission Alliance, but also Lanzhou station and Xining station of the China Inland Church. So I read and collect more articles and information related with Rev. Carter Holton and his life.
