Samuel, Ella, and Gladys Frost Photo Collection, 1910-1975 (Manuscript Collection 9)

Finding Aid: https://adl.b2.adventistdigitallibrary.org/collections/7fc63bf7-71aa-4c3b-a448-8b56c7b5c891

Scope and Content:
This collection contains 191 photographs of varying sizes, depicting scenes in the United States, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, documenting the lives of Samuel, Ella, and Gladys Frost, as well as people they knew and served with in those places. Most of the photographs are from the 1920s and 1930s.

Arrangement and Quantity:
This collection is 0.5 linear feet. The photographs were numbered by the archivist and can be located according to the number listed in this aid in Box D 13 35. Several of the photographs bear inscriptions in English, and others in a script which is presumed to be Chinese (but which is not yet translated).

Custodial History and Immediate Source of Acquisition:
The photographs originally belonged to Samuel, Ella, and Gladys Frost, and were either given to or taken by them. The collection was donated by Kathleen Bergman (daughter of Gladys Frost and granddaughter of Samuel and Ella Frost) and delivered by Robert and Audrey Folkenberg to the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research in October 2019.

Biographical Information:

Samuel Lilley Frost was born 25 December 1884 in New York. Ella (Knokey) Frost was born 7 January 1887 in Alabama. They both were schoolteachers and met while working as, respectively, the assistant science and mathematics teacher and the assistant piano teacher, at Walla Walla College (now Walla Walla University). They married on 19 July 1910 and continued to teach, first at Ames Academy in Idaho, then at Forest Home Academy in Washington, and then at South Lancaster Academy in Massachusetts. Some photographs in the collection come from this early period of their
careers.

A few months after the reorganization of the Asiatic Division, the Frosts went as missionaries to China, sailing from San Francisco on 1 August 1916 with a large group of Adventist missionaries. Except for furloughs and World War II, the Frosts worked in China until their permanent return in 1949. Samuel Frost served as the Educational and Young People’s secretary, 1916-1933; principal and teacher at Shanghai Missionary College (originally the China Missions Training School and then the China Training Institute), 1919-1922; and Secretary of the China Division, 1936-1941. Ella Frost taught music, including piano, at the China Training School and at Far Eastern Academy, 1916-1940.

During a furlough in the United States in 1924, the Frosts lost their child, Florence, who had been born in China on 10 June 1920. Right before they returned to China, they adopted their daughter, Gladys, who had been born earlier that year. During their time in China, they also raised a young woman, Oilene, in their home in China; after Oilene married, she supplied the Frosts with photographs of her daughters, Rena and Juanita Liu, which are a part of this collection. When the Frosts received “evacuation advice” as the United States headed toward war, Ella and Gladys traveled back to the United States in December 1940. Samuel was later evacuated to the Philippines, where he was eventually interned in Baguio, Philippines by the Japanese from 1941 to 1945.

In 1945, Samuel was released, and the Frosts reunited in the United States. Samuel was in such poor physical condition that the General Conference Secretariat ordered him to remain in the United States to recuperate. During this time, he taught at La Sierra College, where Ella had been teaching piano since 1944.

Samuel and Ella Frost were cleared to travel back to China in 1948 and did so. Samuel (presumably) took the photographs of damage done to Adventist property in Shanghai during the war. Sadly, political changes in China meant that the Frosts’ return to China was cut short, and they permanently returned to the States in October 1949. There, they again spent time teaching in California. Samuel retired in 1953. Ella died in 1968, Samuel died in 1981, and Gladys died in 2012.