Quakers in Kenya: Friends Manuscript Series

FMS, or Friends Manuscript Series, contains the personal records of individual Quakers. For example, D. Elton Trueblood’s personal papers. (As opposed to his college related papers, which would be housed with the college records.) FMS collections cover a wide variety of topics and include letters, photographs, clippings, genealogical material, artifacts, poetry, and anything else that an individual or family might create in their lifetime with enduring value. A member of the Archives' staff will be happy to assist you if you wish to study one or more of these collections.

FMS 75: Merle L. Davis Papers, 1915-1965

The Merle L. Davis Papers consist of correspondence, notebooks, photographs, reports, and other materials documenting the career of Merle Leonard Davis as a Quaker minister, missionary, and administrator. The collection contains significant material for the history of the Five Years Meeting of Friends (now Friends United Meeting), Quaker missions, and Friends in Kenya and Cuba.

FMS 134: Herbert and Beatrice Kimball Collection, 1902-2000

The collection consists of materials gathered by Herbert and Beatrice Kimball concerning mission work in Kenya and other regions of the world.  Beatrice Kimball researched in Quaker publications and other materials available in the Friends Collection and College Archives, and the results of her work form the foundation of this collection. Materials include correspondence, papers, obituaries, research notes by Beatrice Kimball, lectures, reports, and other related items.

Series I is titled Africa and includes subseries on East Africa, missionary workers and missionary workers in Kenya. The missionary worker files include articles written by and about missionaries, genealogical and biographical information researched by Beatrice Kimball, obituaries, reports, pamphlets, and some correspondence. Kenya materials are located both in the East Africa and Kenya subseries.  Within the Kenya subseries, other African countries such as Uganda are mentioned.