Guide to the Lautenschlager Family Papers

Roy S. Lautenschlager (1889-1978) was born in 1889 in Kitchener, Ontario. He was converted at a United Brethren Church in 1906 and graduated from one of their affiliated colleges, Huntington College, in Indiana in 1920. He received his MA from the University of Michigan in 1921. He met Grace Miller (1889-?) while at Huntington College and they were married on September 8, 1920.

Mr. and Mrs. Lautenschlager applied for PCUSA missionary service in 1921. They were appointed for service in China in 1922 and were assigned to the Hangchow Christian College where Mr. Lautenschlager taught English, History, Economics and Bible. When they returned from furlough in 1928 they found Hangchow under the Nationalist Government, and the college under nationalist administration. They were stationed in Soochow until 1929, where they taught at Vincent Miller Academy. In 1929, they returned to Hangchow College where Roy was appointed head of the newly developed Political Science and History Department.

When the Sino-Japanese War reached the Hangchow area in 1937, the college was closed and later reopened in Shanghai. Roy left his wife and two daughters (Virginia May and Mary Frances) in Shanghai and returned to Hangchow where he engaged in relief work. As conditions worsened, Grace and her daughters returned to the United States. Roy was interned by the Japanese in Shanghai from November 1942 until December 1943. When it was possible to return to Hangchow, the Lautenschlager's worked in rehabilitating devastated camps and reorganizing Hangchow Christian College. The Communist government put increasing restrictions on the Christian work at Hangchow College, forcing the Lautenschlagers to return to the United States in 1951. They retired in 1954.