French, Thomas Marion (1883–1949)

Thomas Marion French was a pioneer educator and missionary in Africa. French later became a prominent theologian and author in the denomination, and served as an administrator and as a member of various denominational boards. He married twice: First to Lucina Peabody (1887-1911) who served briefly in Africa as a missionary but tragically died, and second to Jessie Ruth Green (1887-1959), a musician and teacher who devoted her life in service to the Adventist Church.

Background

Thomas French was born March 25, 1883, at Wills Point, Texas, to Benjamin French (1849-1941) and Fredonia Gibbard (1857-1894). At the age of eight he “was touched by Bible truth, and with his parents and older brother and sister he accepted the Sabbath truth.”¹ In 1887 he graduated from the Graham School of Shorthand. He attended public schools (1889-1892) followed by seven years at Keene Academy (1893-1900) in Keene, Texas, where he and his brother, Robert, were baptized in 1894.² He also spent a year Battle Creek College (1900-1901).³ As a student he showed early leadership ability and was placed in charge of the broom factory in Keene where he supervised several other young men.⁴

French began working for the church in 1901 as a bookkeeper and teacher at Keene Academy where he remained until 1903. Around this time, he helped found the Keene Young People’s [Missionary] Society (1902) through which students conducted local evangelistic meetings, including a series of evangelistic meetings organized by students in Cleburne.⁵ He then taught for one year at the Graham School of Shorthand (1903-1904). When he was not busy teaching, such as during the summer, he obtained additional income through stenographic work.⁶ He then returned to teach at Keene Academy (1904-1906).

Lucina Peabody was born July 23, 1887, at Milton, Oregon. Her parents moved to Walla Walla, Washington, and later, to Louisiana.⁷ Thomas presumably met Lucina in Keene, and they were married on October 19, 1905, in the home of Professor Cassius B. Hughes (1859-1921).⁸

After their marriage, the Frenches moved to Union College in College View, Lincoln, Nebraska, where Thomas was placed in charge of the commercial department,⁹ and he developed a two-year business course that included shorthand, bookkeeping, and aspects of arithmetic.¹⁰ He also audited the books of various church institutions, including Union College¹¹ and the Wichita Sanitarium.¹² At College View, Lucina served as Sabbath School secretary of the College View Church.¹³

Early Mission Service (1908-1911)

On May 5, 1908, the General Conference Committee extended a call to Thomas and Lucina French to serve as missionaries in Sierra Leone.¹⁴ They left that month and spent time with family in Texas and Louisiana before traveling onward to New York City to catch a boat for England, where they planned to stopover for a week. They reported from the vessel Cedric that, despite the “rock of the boat” and the “broad expanse of blue water,” they believed God was leading them to serve in their “field labor.” They requested others to pray that God would prepare the hearts they hoped to reach through the Holy Spirit.¹⁵ After a second ten-day trip on the steamer Falaba, they reached the harbor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on August 11, 1908.¹⁶ Lucina reported on the construction of a new school building. While her husband worked with D. C. Babcock on construction, she and Mina Babcock spent time teaching. She added how grateful she was for the bananas and how difficult it was to buy dried fruit. Even canned fruit was very expensive. “I would give almost anything for some dried apples, apricots, and prunes. We are so tired of bananas.”¹⁷

The Babcocks rejoiced at being joined by the new missionary couple, noting “brighter days are before us.”¹⁸ Within the first year of the Babcock’s arrival (1906) the missionaries had secured a farm at Waterloo, twenty miles away, that they hoped would become a second mission station. The boys’ school would be run from the new location; Mina Babcock would run the girls’ school from the original location in Freetown.¹⁹ Thomas and Lucina discovered a significant opportunity when they heard about another Waterloo farm that was for sale at a bargain. They quietly and quickly went to the owner, discovered it was ideal for their needs, and signed a contract before any of the other missionaries could oppose or block the sale.²⁰ Thomas reported that he was “very, very busy” since he arrived, and that he was “pressed into nearly every kind of work—from ministerial work, work of church elder, educational work, down to carpentry, masonry, etc., on our school building.” He was happy that the training school had opened, and that they had good health “considering the climate.”²¹ On September 30, 1908, they laid a foundation for a building that would be 36 feet by 62 feet and three stories high.²²

On January 2, 1909, Thomas reported a baptism of nine individuals—six from Freetown and three more from Waterloo.²³ Setbacks and delays meant that they first opened one incomplete school building near the mission on March 4, 1909. Within the first year there was forty-three students representing fifteen different languages or dialects.²⁴ That spring they passed out thousands of tracts in Freetown that generated discussions across the city about Adventist beliefs. Soon there was enough interest to start a worship service in the Mendi language.²⁵ Within the first two years of the school’s operation (one year before the Frenches arrived and then during their first year), eighteen students were baptized, the results of Adventist educational efforts.²⁶ The farm and school location at Waterloo was an important strategic resource because most students (nine out of ten they said) were unable to pay for their education. The new property allowed students to work on the farm, contributing to the school’s self-sustainment.²⁷ The lower elevation of the farm meant increased danger due to “African fever” (malaria), but they also noted that despite this, they must “keep going.”²⁸ The missionaries hoped to complete the new church and school buildings in Waterloo by April 1910.²⁹ Initially they finished the core structure of the church, and the school was held in the church basement.³⁰ At the new location enrollment grew to seventy students.³¹ In order to provide enough resources, they started an industrial school and factory where students turned out “wagons, carts, platform-trucks, and doing much repair work.”³² The church rallied as they held the first ever workers’ meetings for missionaries in West Africa from October 10 to 18, 1910. Both Mina Babcock and Lucina French led out in the training.³³

The Frenches left the Waterloo station in late 1910 to travel approximately 1,000 miles to Axim, Gold Coast (today in the modern country of Ghana), to help reinforce earlier efforts to spread the Adventist message. While waiting for travel funds, they noted how during an outbreak of disease many had become “very sick” and “extremely weak,” including Lucina. On the second day after their arrival, her fever broke, but then returned. Despite taking some quinine, she died on January 18, 1911, from complications pertaining to blackwater fever and malaria.³⁴ Sam Morfue, a local worker at Axim, and other believers went to comfort Thomas French. They buried her the same evening with biblical passages about the Second Advent and the Resurrection. Morfue recalled that she was “a very quiet, good lady.”³⁵ Church leaders expressed their shock about the news of her death, claiming, “West Africa has. . .lost an earnest, devoted, self-sacrificing missionary.”³⁶ D. C. Babcock noted that her loss was a “severe experience” as most of the workers there were “taken severely ill.” He started to explore whether it might be possible to establish “a recuperating-station” in the Canary Islands for sick missionaries.³⁷

Thomas French also became sick, which necessitated his return to the United States. While home recuperating, he was tasked by the General Conference to speak at camp meetings in the Southwestern Union.³⁸ He spoke at the Missionary Volunteer Institute for the Lake Union. It was reported that his talks about missionary work in Africa helped inspire “several of the young people . . . to give their lives to God to be used in that needy field.”³⁹ Other stops included the academy in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and Union College.⁴⁰ On Sabbath, June 3, 1911, at the end of the “Closing Exercises” (graduation) at Keene Academy, Elder William Voth led out in “a very impressive ordination service” for French.⁴¹ General Conference leaders requested that he stay at the Foreign Mission Seminary in Washington, D. C., that fall so that he could “have a cooler climate than Texas” for his extended recovery.⁴²

Return to Africa (1912-1914)

While Thomas was recuperating, he met another college classmate, Jessie Ruth Green. She was a musician and music teacher who had been born January 5, 1887, in Peoria, Texas. Baptized by Luther Warren in August 1903,⁴³ she had taught in New Mexico (1906-1909) before becoming director of music at Keene Academy (1909-1911). The two wedded in California on December 19, 1911.⁴⁴ Thomas appealed to denominational leaders for more funding so that they could return to the Gold Coast (Ghana) to finish his dream of establishing a permanent mission station.⁴⁵ This plan was approved at the Autumn Council.⁴⁶ By the last week of January 1912, Thomas and Ruth French were on their way, aboard the ship Olympic, bound for West Africa. They planned to stop over at the Canary Islands to help build a new mission home there.⁴⁷ In preparation for this, Bert B. and Isabella Aldrich (1879-1963; 1878-1967) had sailed there the previous November from Spain in order to establish a mission. The new mission station doubled as a place where missionaries could rest and recover from malaria and other tropical diseases.⁴⁸ Thomas French, accompanied by Ruth, eventually returned to the Waterloo Mission on March 3, 1912, just in time to send off William H. and Estella née Babcock Lewis (1882-1972; 1881-1932)⁴⁹ who were so sick with malaria that they needed to leave immediately for the newly established rest home in the Canary Islands.⁵⁰

The Frenches arrived at a critical moment because the two previous missionary families running the Waterloo mission station had left. Thomas went to work finishing the church and school buildings that he had begun earlier. The expanded church building, complete with a pulpit, was dedicated July 21, 1912.⁵¹ The school building remained a shell without windows, yet the students managed to move into it. They carried through the work of construction until a proper school building was completely finished.⁵² The couple stayed in Waterloo until Ruth’s poor health necessitated that they, too, go to the Canary Islands, “the health base for West Africa.”⁵³ Thomas did not want to lose a second wife to tropical disease. They left January 2, 1914, for the Canary Islands, where they were happily reunited with their friends, Bert and Isabella Aldrich.⁵⁴

Service in England and the United States (1914-1922)

By early 1914 Thomas and Ruth had left the Canary Islands for England.⁵⁵ Thomas served as an evangelist in the Midland Conference where he received ministerial credentials.⁵⁶ He held evangelistic meetings in Lincoln, England, that led to fifteen people accepting “the truth.”⁵⁷ He was soon invited by W. T. Bartlett to teach at the Stanborough Park Missionary College in Watford, England. He ultimately became “preceptor” of the school.⁵⁸ He recalled the day when England became involved in World War I when Belgian neutrality was violated. Particularly vivid were scenes of the Zeppelin raids in London as bombs dropped and people rushed to the underground railways for protection.⁵⁹ The outbreak of war prevented some students from returning to school.⁶⁰ Thomas taught for one more year, until the war necessitated that they return to the United States. By early 1916 they had returned to America, settling in West Virginia,⁶¹ where he continued to do evangelistic and pastoral ministry.

In 1918 the General Conference requested that Thomas French serve at Emmanuel Missionary College in Berrien Springs, Michigan.⁶² He was to head the new “evangelistic department” at the school.⁶³ It was also while the Frenches were in Berrien Springs, Michigan, that their two oldest children were born: Thomas Harold (born May 29, 1920) and Fredonia Ruth (born October 17, 1921). Thomas was a deeply loved professor who inspired his students with the importance of sharing one’s faith. F. M. Wilcox reported on Thomas’s work training future pastors to be evangelists:

The evangelical department is rapidly developing into one of the strongest features of the school. During the year just closed the students conducted eight series of meetings. These were carried on under the direction of Elder T. M. French, who has charge of this department. As a result of these meetings between fifteen and twenty persons have accepted the third angel’s message. Next year the college will offer a strong Bible workers’ course in connection with the ministerial department.⁶⁴

In effect, French was the first Adventist to develop what effectively was a field school of evangelism in conjunction with Adventist ministerial preparation.

The following summer French was an active participant at the 1919 Bible Conference.⁶⁵ He advised fellow conference participants that their discussions about inspiration were “not shifting our position.” At a time when much of the debate centered on how to properly interpret Ellen White’s writings, he argued that those who articulated a more flexible understanding of inspiration were actually being faithful to Ellen White’s wishes and consistent with the early Adventist pioneers. As he put it, their discussions about “the spirit of prophecy” are the same “as [how] it has been viewed all along.”⁶⁶

Thomas French returned with students to West Virginia where he had been laboring to experiment with the idea of an evangelistic tabernacle. These portable structures attracted attention and provided a public venue for holding revivals, and then could be transported to other places. “The tabernacle is with Seventh-day Adventists an experiment,” wrote J. S. Washburn.⁶⁷ It was also an idea that quickly caught on in other places throughout the 1920s. French also had practical counsel for doing outreach, such as avoiding Adventist jargon or terms “not understood by people not of our faith” in order to help avoid “a spirit of bigotry.” Examples he listed included “the third angel’s message,” “the truth,” and “outsiders.”⁶⁸ He also encouraged small groups of young people, as part of the “Missionary Volunteer” movement, to go out and hold meetings. He recommended they take with them a pianist or organist as “music is always appreciated, and is an excellent preparation for the reception of the gospel truths.”⁶⁹ The key to evangelism, he believed, remained friendship: “There is nothing like friendship that wins the hearts of the people. Meeting the people before and after the service, becoming acquainted with them, and showing a real interest in their welfare, helps much in winning them to the truth.”⁷⁰

Field Secretary in Africa (1922-1928)

Thomas French was a delegate to the 1922 General Conference session at which he was elected the educational and missionary volunteer secretary for the African Division.⁷¹ The Frenches left that September. He participated in helping to find a location for a new Adventist school in Southwest Africa, what turned out to be the city of Windhoek (today a part of Namibia).⁷² French supported a special effort to reach northern Bechuanaland (today Botswana) through the medical evangelism of Dr. Adeline H. Kretchmar (1888-1954), which contributed to opening an Adventist school there.⁷³ A request for a missionary teacher at Grootfontein by Chief Kanjima, who waited a year and ultimately died before they sent a missionary, prompted appeals to recruit and train more missionaries.⁷⁴ It was also while they were in South Africa that Thomas and Ruth had their third child, a son named Frank Benjamin, born November 9, 1923.

In 1924 Thomas French traveled with Elder E. C. Boger (1881-1939) through southern Sudan and Belgian Congo, where they explored new areas for future missions.⁷⁵ As he later described the trip:

Seven chiefs lined up and asked Elder Boger and me for teachers, while on our investigation trip through the eastern Congo three years ago. It was the climax of a long, eventful journey. After traveling across Belgian East Africa, we turned west from the Kivu district and trekked with carriers along a forty-day jungle trail to the Congo River. Our hearts were stirred within us as we journeyed day after day through populous villages without seeing a Christian or a Christian mission. We determined to plant a station among those people. Just before reaching the great Congo River, these seven chiefs made an earnest request for Christian schools, and we promised to do what we could for them.⁷⁶

While entering the province of Angola, in Portuguese West Africa, they were able to select the very first site for an Adventist mission in that region.⁷⁷ Another memorable trip was visiting Ujiji (today in Tanzania) to see the site where Henry M. Stanley (1841-1904) met David Livingstone (1813-1873) in 1871.⁷⁸ In 1927 he traveled with W. H. Anderson (1870-1950) on a longer journey that lasted over five months “spying out the land with a view to locating new missionary stations.”⁷⁹ Ultimately they did find a place, the first mission station in French Equatorial Africa, and the following year, Pastor Robert Llewellyn⁸⁰ (1903-1940) and Charlotte (1902-1989) Jones would establish a station there.⁸¹ Before they were done a second site in the Cameroons was also selected.⁸² This trip was especially notable because the mission now had obtained a car, and they were able to motor their way across central Africa. At one memorable point, E. C. Boger and French, while traveling at night, came across a hartebeest bull (kongori or an African antelope) that charged their car. Fortunately, they had a rifle with them and dropped the animal before it could strike.⁸³ Upon completing the trip, French was elected president of the Natal-Transvaal Conference. His rich experience and leadership qualities made church leaders feel that this “well qualifies him for aggressive leadership.”⁸⁴

Return to America and Later Years

In late 1928 the General Conference forwarded a call for French to head the Bible Department at Atlantic Union College.⁸⁵ The French family had also requested a furlough to the United States. They left Durban, South Africa, on January 27, 1929, bound for America⁸⁶ on the steamer Usaramu with the plan to visit Egypt enroute to see ancient historic sites.⁸⁷ They eventually arrived in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, in time for French to preach his first sermon at the South Lancaster church on July 20, 1929.⁸⁸ As the new dean of the school of theology at Atlantic Union College, he organized the theology students into mentoring evangelistic groups.

Writing became an increasingly important part of French’s life. In 1933 he wrote a tract on “The Millennium.”⁸⁹ He also became notable for his interpretation of Daniel 11 and the King of the North versus the King of the South.⁹⁰ He believed that the rise of Japan had particular significance as a reference to “the kings of the East” during the time leading up to the battle of Armageddon.⁹¹ French increasingly became recognized as an expert in the denomination on the final eschatological events, writing extensively on the topic, especially as tensions rose during the 1930s leading up to World War II.⁹² By 1934 he shifted to become an associate editor of the Review and Herald, the denomination’s main periodical (a role he continued until 1938).⁹³ He also served as an associate editor of Liberty, and as a member of the book committee for the Review and Herald.

French was known for giving especially interesting stereopticon lectures.⁹⁴ It is notable that from the late 1920s onward, he had taken a camera with him on his missionary travels. Those pictures were frequently used to illustrate missionary articles in church periodicals.

Later Years

In 1939 French remained a member of the Religious Liberty advisory council but also retained his credentials from the North Pacific Union Conference while he served briefly as head of the Bible Department at Walla Walla College.⁹⁵ From the late 1930s through the end of his life he served on a number of influential boards of Adventist institutions.⁹⁶ He served once again as president of the West Virginia Conference from 1940 to 1941 and then in the same role at the East Pennsylvania Conference from 1942 to 1943. He remained a “highly visible” author within the denomination during his later years and from 1944 to 1949 retained “honorary” ministerial credentials from the Columbia Union Conference. Thomas French died on December 12, 1949, in Takoma Park, Maryland. His second wife, Ruth, outlived him by another decade passing away on August 29, 1959, in Battle Creek, Michigan. The couple are buried in Stanley, Virginia.⁹⁷

Sources

Babcock, D. C. “West Africa.” ARH, December 21, 1911.

Babcock, D. C. “The Work in West Africa.” ARH, July 1, 1909.

Babcock, D. C. “The Year in West Africa.” Signs of the Times, October 31, 1911.

Babcock, Mrs. D. C. [Mina]. “Workers’ Meeting in West Africa.” ARH, February 2, 1911.

“Jessie Ruth French.” Biographical Information Blank. July 7, 1912. General Conference Archives.

“Thomas Marion French.” Biographical Information Blank. July 1, 1912. General Conference Archives.

Branson, W. H. “Brightest Light in Darkest Africa.” ARH, December 11, 1924.

Branson, W. H. “The Church in Africa: The Marvels of God’s Grace.” ARH, December 20, 1928.

“Death of Sister T. M. French.” ARH, March 23, 1911.

French, T. M. “Acquaintance with God.” ARH, October 19, 1911.

French, T. M. “Among the Temne Villages.” Signs of the Times, December 1, 1914.

French, T. M. “A Bird’s-eye View of World Happenings.” Youth’s Instructor, December 31, 1935.

French, T. M. “Christ All and in All.” ARH, January 7, 1915.

French, T. M. “Multitudes Yet in the Shadow of Death.” Missions Quarterly, First Quarter, 1928.

French, T. M. “A New Field Entered.” ARH, September 13, 1923.

French, T. M. “Opening Providences in Bechuanaland.” ARH, October 11, 1923.

French, T. M. “Our West African School.” Signs of the Times, May 19, 1914.

French, T. M. “Pioneering in Equatorial Africa.” ARH.

French, T. M. “The School as a Factor in Mission Work.” Christian Education, July-August 1911.

French, T. M. “The School at Waterloo, West Africa.” Northern Union Reaper, April 9, 1912.

French, T. M. “A Strange but Glorious Triumph.” ARH, May 14, 1914.

French, “View of Present-Day Missionary Work in Africa: A Day at Waterloo.” Youth’s Instructor, March 18, 1913.

French, T. M. “West Africa.” ARH, March 18, 1909.

French, T. M. “A West African Boy.” Youth’s Instructor, February 14, 1911.

French, T. M. “West African Training School.” Christian Education, May-June 1910.

French, T. M. “West African Training-School.” ARH, October 20, 1910.

French, T. M. “Where a Sermon Has Never Been Preached on the Ubangui of Central Africa.” ARH, June 30, 1927.

General Conference Committee. 1904-1950. Genera Conference Archives. Accessed August 28, 2023. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCC.

Hughes, C. B. “Closing Exercises at Keene Academy.” Southwestern Union Record, June 13, 1911.

“Lucine Katherine Peabody French obituary,” ARH, March 30, 1911.

“The Natives Mourn.” Educational Messenger, April 6, 1911.

“Ruth G. French obituary,” ARH, October 29, 1959.

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Second revised edition. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1996. S.v. “French, Thomas Marion,” 10:571.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1939.

“Thomas Marion French obituary,” ARH, January 26, 1950.

Trim, David J. B. A Living Sacrifice: Unsung Heroes of Adventist Missions. Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2019.

“Woman Adventist Worker Dies Here.” Battle Creek Enquirer, August 31, 1959.

Notes