THE “TROY BRANCH” INSTITUTES THE PROJECT
Mrs. House’s plea for the women of Siam found a response very near home. It so happened that in the spring of 1872 Secretaries Irving and Ellinwood, of the Foreign Board, addressed a meeting of the Synod of Albany, held at Troy, New York. The Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany met at the same place, and united with the Synod to hear the addresses. The result was the organisation of a branch of the Women’s Board to cover the Troy Presbytery, whence the name “Troy Branch.” The organising group not only undertook to establish auxiliaries in their respective churches but resolved as a Branch to assume as their first and special object a boarding school for girls in Bangkok; and to inaugurate this project they commissioned Mrs. House, who was known personally to many of the women of the new organisation. To begin the work the Branch agreed to provide three thousand dollars; and for the next four years they raised some one thousand four hundred and forty dollars. So it happened that Mrs. House became the official head of the projected boarding school for girls.
The enterprise which was now committed to her was much larger in scope than the work she already had under way; and even with small beginnings there was need of an assistant to share the burden, lighten the responsibility and aid in council. While Mrs. House was in correspondence with several young women whose interests had been turned towards Siam by her addresses a young woman of her own church at Waterford, Arabella Anderson, offered herself.
ARABELLA ANDERSON-NOYES
Arabella Anderson was the daughter of James McL. and Arabella Moreland Anderson, who emigrated from Belfast about 1847. They settled at Waterford, New York, and promptly identified themselves with the Presbyterian Church. They brought an infant son with them; another son and three daughters were born to them in their new home. Arabella was the eldest daughter, having been born Nov. 26, 1848. After elementary instruction in the local school she spent a year in a nearby academy. At the age of twelve she united with the Church. Her desire to become a foreign missionary was largely the fruit of home influence. Both parents were devoted to the cause of missions. Her father never forgot to intercede for the work at family prayers. Her mother had been quickened in zeal for the work in youth by hearing a missionary to Russia; and it was her hope that her first born son might become a missionary, though circumstances prevented this.
In the summer of 1872 Mrs. S. R. House was at her old home in Waterford planning to return to Siam for the new enterprise which had been entrusted to her by the “Troy Branch.” The pastor of the local church, Rev. R. P. H. Vail, preached a missionary sermon making a strong appeal for a volunteer to accompany Mrs. House as a missionary-teacher. This came to the heart of Miss Anderson as the Master’s call for enlistment in the work she had long contemplated. After counsel with her mother she offered her services to Mrs. House and was accepted. Two months later, in September, the two sailed for Siam, reaching Bangkok late in the autumn. It was two years before the new boarding school for girls could be housed. In the meantime Miss Anderson took charge of the younger children in the day school of the mission.
After the girls’ school was under way, by a happy inspiration Miss Anderson hit upon an idea that brought the new school to the attention of the young King Chulalongkorn. The sewing class was sewing patches to make a quilt cover. It occurred to her that a specimen of their product brought to the attention of the king might demonstrate to him the practical character of their school. Accordingly she had the girls make a quilt from pieces of silk she had brought from China, with the intention of presenting this to the king on his birthday. Arrangements having been made through the Foreign Office, Dr. and Mrs. House, Miss Anderson and Miss Grimstead (another assistant) were received by the king. After an address of congratulations they presented the silk quilt to him. His Majesty expressed his pleasure at the compliment, and his gratification at having such a specimen of the work being done by the girls of the school. Droll as this incident may seem now—the formal reception at royal court and the presentation, to such an august personage, of a patch-work quilt made by girls of a sewing class—yet the demonstration made a favourable impression upon the progressive ruler and won his sympathetic interest in the educational work for girls newly undertaken by the mission.
After learning the language Miss Anderson translated several of Dr. Richard Newton’s addresses for the young, under the title Bible Blessings. Mrs. House and Miss Anderson went to Canton in 1875 for recuperation. There Miss Anderson met Rev. Henry V. Noyes, a missionary under the Presbyterian Board. The acquaintance led to an engagement, and the two were married at Bangkok, Jan. 29, 1876. Two years were spent in America in work for the Chinese on the Pacific Coast, and then the couple returned to China, where Mrs. Noyes co-operated with her husband, especially conducting Bible schools for women.
After the death of her husband, in 1914, she continued to labour in China in a non-official capacity until 1922, when she returned to America, having served in the foreign mission work fifty years. One son, Richard V. Noyes, died as he was about to enter upon a missionary career; the other son, Rev. Wm. D. Noyes, was for some years a missionary in China under the Presbyterian Board. A sister of Mrs. Noyes, Sarah Jean (1854-1902), graduated in 1875 from the Women’s Medical College of New York and in 1877 sailed for China as a medical missionary under the Presbyterian Board. Ill health compelled her to resign two years later. Afterwards she married Mr. Richard C. Brown and resided in England, where she rendered valuable services for the cause of temperance.