Lloyd and Ellen Cunningham Papers, 1936-2000 | Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections

Ellen Edmister was born on 22 January 1907 to parents J. Frank and Sarah Johnson Edmister. Ellen taught elementary school for a year after she graduated high school. She attended La Verne College from 1926 until 1930 and taught school for two years in Laton, California. On 20 December 1931, she married E. Lloyd Cunningham. She gave up teaching to assist and support him, attending courses at Bethany Biblical Seminary while he finished his graduate work.

Ernest Lloyd Cunningham was born on 30 July 1906 to parents J. Ernest and Hazel Dabis Cunningham. He was raised in a Southern Methodist family but joined the Church of the Brethren in 1917. He attended La Verne College from 1924 until 1929, where he met Ellen. He went on to attend the University of California, Fresno State College, and the College of Medical Evangelists. On 13 June 1937, he graduated with his M.D. from the College of Medical Evangelists after completing his intern work at Garfield Park Community hospital in Chicago. He knew he wanted to do religious service with his medical degree, although he originally wanted to go to Africa for mission work. Instead, the General Mission Board decided they would send them to China, along with other Brethren missionaries.

Together, the Cunninghams travelled to China in 1938, and remained there until 1941. Their son Larry was born in 1939. They moved to the Philippines, where they were captured and taken prisoner by the Imperial Japanese Army. They spent 4 years imprisoned and returned to California once they were freed. In 1947, their daughter Joycelyn was born. They returned to mission work in China but were forced out by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. They spent eight years doing mission work in India until returning home to California in 1957. In 1978, Ellen wrote about the family’s imprisonment experience in a journal. Lloyd died in 1976; Ellen died in 2009. They are survived by their two children: Larry and Joycelyn.

Marlin Heckman, nephew of Ellen Edmister Cunningham, acquired the collection after Ellen’s death. Heckman worked as an academic librarian for forty-two years, a decade at Bethany Theological Seminary in Illinois, followed by 32 years at the University of La Verne as a Professor and University Librarian. During his time at the University of La Verne, Heckman introduced technology into the library and played a key role in expanding the archives’ collections. He retired in 2003 and then served as a volunteer librarian there until his death in 2018. Heckman intended to publish the letters to shed light on a period of Chinese history that is often ignored. He organized and transcribed parts of the collection and published Ellen’s journal in Brethren Life and Thought, a Church of the Brethren periodical. He passed away in 2018 after giving the collection to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.