Guide to the Joan Rankin Papers

Joan Rankin, missionary for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and its successor, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., served in Iran as a teacher in the Community School in Tehran, an international English-speaking school, from 1954 to 1957 and from 1960 to 1966. She resigned from career service in 1967. Rankin returned to the Community School in 1970 and was a staff member until her resignation in 1974.

Rankin, born in 1923, was the daughter of teachers and was raised in Orofino, Idaho. She obtained degrees from Orofino High School in 1941, Lewiston State Normal School in 1943, the University of Idaho in 1947, and the University of Washington, Seattle, where she earned her Washington teaching credentials in 1949.

Rankin's career began in 1943 with teaching the second grade in Idaho. Between 1946 and 1954, she taught in primary and junior high schools in Washington. From 1952 to 1953, Rankin attended the San Francisco Theological Seminary at San Anselmo, California, to pursue a masters degree in Christian education. While still teaching, Rankin began spending her free time on mission work, particularly with Native Americans, teaching Vacation Bible School in southeastern Alaska.

From 1954 to 1957, Rankin taught seventh grade at the Community School in Tehran, Iran. In 1957, Rankin returned to the United States and from 1957 to 1960, she taught fifth and sixth graders in Washington. Rankin returned to the Community School in 1960 and taught until 1966, when she moved back to the United States to teach sophomore English and the New Testament at the Presbyterian related Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. She remained in Utah for a year then taught fifth and sixth graders in Washington from 1967 to 1970.

In 1970, Rankin returned for her last run of teaching at the Community School, remaining there until 1974 when she resigned, largely due to health issues. On her return to the United States, she lived in Seattle with her aunt, Hazel Fuller, who was also a teacher and who taught, from 1964 to 1965, at the Iran Bethel School for Girls in Iran. Rankin died in 2006.

Throughout her time teaching and living in Iran, Rankin studied and traveled through the Middle East and Europe. Her education included two summers at the American University in Beirut, first during the summer of 1964, and later during the early 1970s. Her travels included Greece and Jerusalem in 1955; Amsterdam, Paris, and an ocean voyage from Europe to the United States during the summer of 1957; Spain, Portugal, and Turkey in 1970 en route to Iran; Switzerland in 1972; Edinburgh, Scotland in the summers of 1973 and 1974; and Beirut and Damascus in 1974, en route to Washington.