User:Pingduan

Suining Middle School The history of Suining Middle School can be traced back to the year of 1908. At that time, there was a missionary, Miss Anna Lindblad, working at a church as well as the church’s day school owned by Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1910, Miss Helen R. Galloway was sent to Suining to erect the building for the new boarding school. A land about 7-1/3 acres outside the North Gate of Suining was purchased as $1069. It was in February, 1913, that Miss Gertrude Tyler gathered about a dozen girls into some old buildings behind the church in Suining and they opened the first boarding school. In the last of July the school moved into the new Dormitory Building. Next year in 1914, the Administration Building was erected. School was known officially as the "Stevens Memorial Suining Girls Boarding School", but was often called locally the Suining Higher Primary Girls School. The Stevens Memorial Suining Girls Boarding School expanded having the Sunday School (1916), Woman's School (1918), Junior Middle School (1925), Senior Middle School (1927), and Kindergarten (1928). In 1925, the 2nd two-floor Dormitory Building was built. The first floor contained a dining room that should seat nearly 200 (named as Shoemaker Memorial dining room), a large and well lighted kitchen adjoining, and four bedrooms. The second floor had twelve bedrooms and an infirmary. The equipment of this school was good. The chapel was provided with organ, table and chairs, and seats for about 150 people. The assembly room was provided with movable desks and chairs. The classrooms had slider large arm chair or ordinary schoolroom desks. All rooms had tables for teachers. The science room had a complete set of science charts, a compound microscope, spectroscope, lenses, mirrors, balance and weights, etc. The library was equipped with reading tables and stools, about 300 volumes in Chinese magazines. The gymnasium was supplied with vertical and horizontal ladders, swinging rings, Indian clubs, dumbbells and wands. The superintendent’s office had the usual office furniture, typewriter, etc. The dining room, occupying lower part of one wing of dormitory, was furnished with long tables and benches. In each bedroom were beds, tables, cupboards and drawers. Most of the bedrooms held three beds and are used by six girls. In addition to the equipment above mentioned, there were a sewing machine, a practice organ, and a volley-ball court. The following missionaries were in Suining and had worked for this school since it was openned in February of 1913: Helen R. Galloway, 1911 - 1918 Anna Lindblad, 1908 - Gertrude Tyler, 1911 - Mary R. Royer, 1914 - Clara A. Caris, 1916 - Belle Castle, 1916 - Helen Desjardins, 1921 - Charlotte Trotter, 1921 - Ida Keister, 1925 - Mrs. Roger Rahn, 1925 - Miss Pilcher Miss Lawrence Maud Parsons, 1935 - Clara French, 1940 - Laura Schleman, 1940 - Luella Koether, 1943 - 1950 Janet Surdam, 1943 –1950