Guide to the Parker Family Papers

Edwin Graham Parker was born in Maryland in 1894. He graduated from Park College in 1916 and spent the next three years in Egypt, teaching at the American Mission Boys' School in Cairo. He entered McCormick Theological Seminary on his return to the US, graduating in 1921. During a further two years of study in Edinburgh, he applied to the Board of Foreign Missions (PCUSA) in the hope of being sent to Northern India.

Ruth Pearl Rubin was born in 1895. She attended Colorado State Teachers' College from 1913-15, after which she taught elementary school in Salida, CO for four years. In 1919 she entered Park College, graduating two years later and going on to teach English in the Salida High School. She applied to the Board of Foreign Missions in 1922, along with her fiance, Edwin Graham Parker. They were assigned to Northern India and married before sailing in 1923.

The Parkers divided their years of service in India between Fatehgarh and Etah stations. Edwin Parker taught for the first year at Saharanpur Theological Seminary and spent the next several years concentrating on rural evangelizing in the Fatehgarh area. He also edited a Hindi monthly newspaper and a Hindi hymnbook, and managed the Memorial Hospital in Fatehgarh. He served one year as superintendent of the boys' school in Etah, and from 1936-37 he served as secretary for the India Council.

Ruth Parker spent her first year in India in language study at Saharanpur. For the next several years she worked alongside her husband as a rural evangelist in and around Fatehgarh. In 1934 she became headmistress of the Rakha Girls' School. The Parkers had one son, Robert Graham, and adopted a daughter, Ruth Elizabeth. They retired from missionary service in 1960 and settled in Wichita, KS on their return to the US. Edwin Parker died in 1963.