Tidbits of Seminary Information on Some Early Southern Baptist Missionaries to Chile in the 1920s and 1940s

I have written a fair amount on the early Southern Baptist missionaries to Chile. The kind librarians of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Adam Winters and Charles Loder (by emails of May 3, 18 and 22 of 2018), provided a few other tidbits of information that will be useful to anyone studying this history. I have included it below, along with some photographs and other pertinent information.

Up until the seminary's 1932 graduating class, Th.M. graduates were required to submit a scholarly, written address six weeks prior to the spring commencement ceremony, and the titles were listed in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary programs or catalogs next to the graduate's name. For instance:

—James McGavock, pictured below with his wife Catherine in Talca, Chile in 1926 and again with her and their 14-year-old son Jimmie in 1942, earned his Th.M. degree in 1922. The title of his address was: "Our Unenlisted Resources in Soul Winning" but there is no holdings record for it in the seminary library's catalog. Photographs source: John Parker, Esto recuerdo de Chile (1990), pages 23 and 33.

—Wynne Quilon Maer earned his Th.M. degree in 1924. The title of his address was: "Baptists and this Age" but there is no holdings record for it in the seminary library's catalog. Note that the source (page 320) stating that he earned his Th.M. from "A.B. Theological Seminary", related in an earlier post, was evidently a typographical error in the sourced material that should have read "S.B. Theological Seminary," even though Maer's name was not present in the 1979 alumni directory of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (perhaps he was deceased by then). There is mention of him having a doctorate in La Voz Bautista 33:1 (January 1941), page 4, where his book La ley, el sábado y el domingo, (The Law, Saturday and Sunday), second edition, was offered for sale (there would be a later edition in 1956, too). Since no record of, or dissertation for, this degree was found by the librarians at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it is likely that he completed his doctorate elsewhere.

One reason that it is hard to find much written beyond La Voz Bautista in Chile and things like memoirs for many of the other men is that most of them did not have graduate degrees and perhaps never took up scholarly writing. For instance:

—Joseph Lancaster Hart, who edited La Voz Bautista for many years, was matriculated for the 1901-1902 and 1902-1903 academic years, earning credits in eleven classes but there is no record of him graduating.

—Frank Marrs was matriculated into four classes for the 1895-1896 academic year but apparently did not earn any degree.

—Luther Moye earned his Th.B. degree in 1923 and became a preacher in Alabama. The following photograph of him and his wife and two missionaries that came to teach school from La Voz Bautista (October 1923):

—John Alexander Parker did earn his Th.M. degree in 1941, but nothing written by him could be found in the seminary library's catalog. He then served as a missionary to Chile. He did write (in Spanish) his memoirs of Chile, Esto recuerdo de Chile (1990). Pages 60 and 95 of that book contain his photographs from 1942 and 1952 (the latter one with his wife Ruby):

—The same is true for Chilean Honorio Espinoza, who earned his Th.M. in 1940. However, he did write "The Place of Religion in Social Control” (1940), Review & Expositor 37:3, pages 282-285. Parker said of him that he "could present himself with distinction in any cultural circle" (source: Esto recuerdo de Chile (1990), page 26, where the photograph below also appears). Espinoza later became Director of La Voz Bautista.

A couple early missionaries wrote a lot, like William Earl Davidson and Robert Cecil Moore. Both of them obtained earned doctorates from the seminary, too, in 1928 and 1944, respectively. Davidson's catechism in Spanish was not found in the seminary library's holdings. The English edition published by Broadman Press, states: "Translated from the Author's Spanish edition of 1930" in the introduction to the work, it recounts that the English version came about from Davidson's work in the classroom in Missouri. Perhaps the school where he was teaching and subsequently translated his own Spanish edition would have the original Spanish edition in their archives. Davidson taught at Hannibal-La Grange College, which is now Hannibal-La Grange University.

While the Virginia Baptists (and, mainly, the Foreign Missions Board) sent Davidson to Chile in 1917, he himself was from Missouri, born just south of Kansas City, ordained due north of it, and spent most of his years of service (after returning from Chile) as a Bible college professor just north of St. Louis. Likewise, Hart (1921), Moore (1919), Marrs (1919), Maer (1926) were all sent out under the brethren in Virginia but only Hart was a native Virginian. The other two were born in Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, respectively. Yet, from what I call tell from their writings, they were influenced in many ways by libertarian Baptist Pastor John Leland from Virginia.

Here is another, related tidbit, mentioned less precisely in an earlier post of mine. Although Isaías Valdivia Sanhueza (born in Gorbea, Chile January 7, 1898 and apparently died in Texas on December 1, 1978) did not attend the seminary, he is worth mentioning here. He was the other early Chilean pastor, besides Espinoza, to attend a Southern Baptist seminary in the United States. He went to the recently-founded Baptist Bible Institute in New Orleans for five years, earning undergraduate diplomas and certificates before returning to Chile. He wrote the biography of his father: Wenceslao Valdivia: Primer Bautista Chileno (1947) (Wenceslao Valdivia: First Chilean Baptist). Isaías was his son, my wife Pamela's maternal great uncle, and thus great granddaughter of Wenceslao Valdivia. He was the founding pastor of the first Baptist church in Valparaíso (1936).

I made an inquiry to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and they confirmed by email that Isaías was with them "from 1926-1932. It appears that he received a two-year certificate in Missionary Training in 1928 and a three-year diploma in Christian Training in 1933." Their records also show Isaías was a high school graduate and, since Chilean Baptist pastors’ kids studied for free (or at a greatly reduced rate) with the Baptist School (Colegio Bautista de Temuco) set up by missionaries in Temuco, it is plausible that Isaías graduated from there and also learned to speak English there. The seminary record, graciously provided by seminary Registrar Shaun Grunblatt on April 24, 2018, puts Isaías going to New Orleans at age 27, a few months shy of 28, studying (in English) for five years at the Baptist Bible Institute (that was the seminary’s original name before being changed to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1946) where he earned the aforementioned two undergraduate credentials.

During his first nine-year stint in the United States, Isaías was involved in (perhaps a Hispanic ministry with?) Coliseum Place Baptist Church in New Orleans. He then returned to Chile to become the first pastor of the First Baptist Church of Valparaíso on March 15, 1936.

Church records from Valparaíso and Ancestry.com, along with Parker's memoirs Esto recuerdo de Chile (1990), indicate that Valdivia was married to an American named Oline Gregory (sometime after the 1930 Census was taken where she was listed as being single) and that their first child Jerry returned to Chile with them, when the couple apparently had a daughter, Carolyn. (Sources: John Parker, Esto recuerdo de Chile (1990), page 27; my wife's mother was given the photograph of the couple above.)

According to La Voz Bautista 33:3 (March 1941, cover), the Valdivias returned to the United States in March 1941 (see photo above). What happened after that is unclear (at the time of writing this article) since Isaías wrote the book about his father from Valparaíso in 1947, and might have then returned permanently to the United States either that year or in 1951—just after the new church building in Valparaíso was inaugurated. Perhaps the 1941 departure was a sort of "furlough" to be near his wife's family for a while, even though Isaías was not exactly a missionary but rather a Chilean national pastor trained in an American seminary and married to an American woman. He apparently lived the rest of his life in the United States, dying in his wife's humble, rural hometown of Grayson, Texas on December 1, 1978, although that fact has yet to be confirmed.

Note that Isaías Valdivia was born in Gorbea (near Temuco) on January 7, 1898 (U.S. Social Security records say 1897). He entered the Baptist Bible Institute on September 15, 1925. Some will wonder how His father was born only eleven or twelve years earlier than him (1886). The reason is probably that the Chilean civil registry did not begin until 1885 and thus there was no record of birth dates before then. If a family would arrive to register in 1886, all of their birth years would be the same, parents and children included, according to the official record. Since other evidence (including photographs) indicates that his father may have lived into his 70s, it is plausible that he was already twenty years old when he was "born" in 1886.

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Until next time,
John Cobin Twitter