Guide to the Street Family Papers

Alfred Ernest Street was born on November 11, 1860, in Salem, Ohio. He entered Ripon College in 1875, leaving soon afterwards to work as a railroad engineer in the Northwest. In 1892, he enrolled in Williams College, and three years later he began his studies at Auburn Theological Seminary. He did not graduate from Auburn, but he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1891 and appointed as pastor to the Centenary Presbyterian Church of Spokane by the Board of Home Missions (PCUSA) in the same year.

In June of 1897, Street married Janny Montgomery. She was born on April 10, 1869; prior to marrying Street, she taught school in the slums of Chicago and New York. In 1895 she was appointed a missionary by the Board of Women (Interdenominational) and sent to Japan. Edith, the Streets' only child, was born in 1898.

In 1901 the Streets applied to the Board of Foreign Missions (PCUSA) and were appointed to Hainan in September of that year. They were stationed at different times in Kiungchow and Hoihow. Alfred Street devoted much of his spare time to the development of a system of writing the Hainanese language; his booklet, Hainanese Colloquial Alphabet, was printed in 1919. Henrietta Montgomery, Janny Street's sister, joined the Streets in Kiungchow, where she became the superintendent of the Pitkin Girls' School.

In 1904 the Streets resigned from the BFM, but they remained in Hainan and continued their missionary work. Alfred Street served as pastor of the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church of Oakland, California for two years, 1909-1911. In 1912 the Streets returned to China; in 1917 Janny and Edith Street returned to California. Alfred Street continued his work in China until his death there in 1922.