Azusa Pacific University - Azusa Pacific University

FACULTY AND STUDENTS, 1900. The Training School for Christian Workers was founded in 1899 by an interdenominational group at the home of Philena Burdg Hadley on Bright Avenue in Whittier. In the earliest extant photograph of the Training School, taken in 1900, Hadley (third row, sixth from left) stands in front of her house wearing an all-black dress. Putting God First, many people at the Training School went on to become missionaries. Pres. Mary A. Hill (third row, far left) served several years as a missionary in China. Irvin Horn Cammack (third row, seventh from left), first president of the board of trustees, spent several years as a missionary in Guatemala and Honduras. Lizzie Morris (first row, far right) served several years as a missionary to the Kake Indians of southern Alaska, while William Abel (third row, ninth from left) traveled to the Philippines, and Ruth Esther Smith (first row, far left) spent 41 years in Chiquimula, Guatemala.

CHINA BAND, JULY 1901. Around February 1901, the Training School moved a couple blocks from Philena Hadleys home to a large, two-story house owned by a Mr. Briggs. The lower floor, which had been used as a broom factory, was divided, with the back used for the kitchen and dining room and the front for the school and meetings. The rooms upstairs accommodated the students. In May 1901, after Briggs sold the property, the Training School moved again to Boyle Heights, occupying the old Hotel Mt. Pleasant, located at 1825 East First Street. Pictured in Boyle Heights is the China Band under the leadership of Horace W. Houlding (second row, fifth from left). Others who joined Houlding were Cecil Troxel (second row, second from left), Mary A. Hill (second row, fourth from left), and Woodford Taylor (second row, sixth from left). The China Band left for South Chih-li on October 15, 1901. Troxel, Hill, and Taylor later spent many years in China with the National Holiness Missionary Society.

CENTRAL AMERICAN BAND, DECEMBER 1901. On December 9, 1901, Thomas J. Kelly (second row, third from left) and Clark J. Buckley (second row, fourth from left) sailed from San Francisco and arrived in Guatemala on January 1. Kelly wrote to the Training School in 1903, stating that the expense of keeping a missionary on the field will be about $150 per year, perhaps a little less.

AUGUST 1902. Mary A. Hill (second row, second from left with black hat) left China on June 25, 1902, for a brief visit to her homeland, spending much of the time in Los Angeles. She was only able to stay four or five weeks, in the hope that others who had expressed interest would be ready to return with her to China by the end of September.