Marcus Brotherton - Teacher: The Henrietta Mears Story

This book is meant to be a readable interpretation of the life of Henrietta Mears, and not an exhaustive research project. In that aim, I am indebted to many authors, educators and researchers who have labored to document and preserve history.

Central to this work are multiple articles and writings of and about Henrietta Mears, including a long-selling book she wrote called What the Bible Is All About; a catalog of her citations called 431 Quotes from the Notes of Henrietta C. Mears, compiled in 1970 by Eleanor Doan; and several transcribed talks, including The Romance of the Sunday School, Who Are the Young People You Teach? Train Up a Child and Dimensions of Leadership.

Central also is a 1966 biography titled Henrietta Mears and How She Did It by Ethel May Baldwin and David Benson. Ms. Baldwin was the longtime administrative assistant of Henrietta Mears and also knew her as a friend. The book was researched anew and rewritten in 1990 by Earl Roe, then a senior editor at Regal Books, and published under a new title, Dream Big.

Thanks also go to Andrea Madden, who researched Henrietta Mears in an unpublished 1997 masters-level thesis for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In researching her dissertation, Ms. Madden pored over the extensive primary sources on hand in the archives of Gospel Light, including old church bulletins, flyers, brochures, unpublished Sunday School lessons, tape recordings, journals and letters (she notes that it took about four full days to sift through the material), and also conducted extensive phone interviews with people who knew Henrietta Mears directly, including, Bill and Vonette Bright, Dale Bruner, Louis Evans, Jr., and Colleen Townsend Evans, Bill Greig Jr., Jack and Anna Kerr, Anne Shelton and Christy Wilson, Jr. Another student, Betsy Cox, wrote a masters thesis in 1961 about Henrietta Mears for Fuller Theological Seminary, which was written while Henrietta Mears was still alive.

Also used as a resource is the work of Dr. Richard Leyda, chairman of the department of Christian Education at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, who researched extensive primary and secondary source material for Henrietta Mears for a lengthy inclusion in the Christian Educators of the Twentieth Century website database project.

I am also indebted to Barbara Hudson Powers for the use of her excellent biography resource The Henrietta Mears Story, written in 1957. When she was a young woman, Barbara Hudson (who is still alive and in her 80s today) worked closely with Henrietta Mears for 14 years and was considered by many to be Miss Mearss protg. To obtain material for her book, Barbara relied on firsthand evidence of her interaction with Henrietta Mears over the years; she also held a series of taped interviews with her. Some of the material for Dream Big and Henrietta Mears and How She Did It was gleaned from Barbara Hudsons original work. Earl Roe obtained permission to use the material, according to Ms. Hudson Powers, and so have we.

Again, my heartfelt thanks go to all the people who have so diligently researched the life of Henrietta Mears.

I am equally thankful to Deena Davis, managing editor of Regal, for her continued vision and excellent editing skills throughout this project.