Fonds F3745 - Homer Grant Brown family fonds

Homer Grant Brown (1882-1957) was born near St. Mary’s, Ontario where he attended St. Mary’s Collegiate Institute. Following that, he attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1906 with a B.A. He taught for a year, then went to British Columbia for Home Mission work, spending a year at Trail. From there, on the recommendation of the YMCA he took a position as teacher of English in one of the government schools in Japan from 1908-1910. Following that, he returned to America where he spent some time in theological studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, specializing in the Department of Religious Education while also working on his M.A. at Columbia University. Mr. Brown went to China in the fall, 1912 primarily for educational work. During his first term in China he re-organized and graded the Sunday School in Chengtu. Brown married Muriel Hockey, another missionary, in January 1915. During World War I, from 1917-1918 he secured a release from mission in order to go to France with the Chinese Labour Corps. Returning to Canada in 1918 he went to New York for further study and sailed to China to begin his second term of service in January, 1920. Upon return to China, he became General Secretary of the West China Christian Educational Union, a post he occupied until 1924. He then spent some time in charge of the Educational Department of West China Union University before being appointed to supervising evangelical work in Chengtu City and the Chengtu district for his last term there. He returned to Canada to take on ministry in 1944 and worked in Port Rowan, B.C. for a year before returning to his home town of St. Mary’s in 1946. Following that, he took a pastorate at Fairground in Haldimand-Norfolk presbytery which he served for six years.

Muriel Brown (nee Hockey) received a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria College. In 1912 she served as the Assistant Superintendent of the National Training School, Toronto. Then, having been specially trained for educational work, she went to China under the Woman’s Missionary Society in 1913. She carried on the work of the school for evangelists’ wives, and taught in the Canadian School for Missionaries’ Children, where for a time she acted as matron. She also worked for a time teaching English in the refugee University of Nanking in Chengtu. The Browns returned from China in 1942.

The Browns’ had three children, Isobel Joy, Julia and Gwendolyn Maud.