Hindson, Anna Leonore (Ingels) (1862–1933)

Anna Leonore (Ingels) Hindson served the church in California as secretary of the California Tract Society for nine years and, for more than forty years, she served in Australia in various positions including secretary of the Australian Tract Society, secretary of the Australasian Union Conference; secretary [director] of the Home Missions department, the Young People’s department; and the Sabbath School department, and editor of the Australasian Union Record and the Missionary Leader.¹

Early life

Anna Leonore Ingels was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on September 27, 1862. At the age of two, her family moved to California. She was 14 when she was converted and baptized by immersion during a revival, along with both of her brothers and her only sister.

At the age of 19, Ingels became a Seventh-day Adventist through the influence of her sister and meetings held by M. C. Israel. She trained to be a school teacher and began teaching in 1882. Her students were aged from six to twenty-one years old and she taught “all subjects from ABC to book-keeping, algebra, and philosophy.”²

In 1883, Ingels invited to join the staff at Pacific Press in Oakland, California. Her pay dropped from £3 a week as a teacher to 12 shillings and 6 pence for her work in the type room and proof room at Pacific Press. After five months she was invited to work with a tent mission being conducted by a Pastor Healy. She then returned home and taught a term of school.

In December of 1883 or January of 1884 (the date is uncertain), Ingels again entered church work and did not leave it until her death in late 1933, giving “50 years of valued service.”³

Australian Connections

For the next nine years, Ingels served as the secretary of the California Tract Society. Part of her work included encouraging Seventh-day Adventists in the United States to post literature and write missionary letters to Australia where the church had no presence. She helped S. N. Haskell, the tract society president, find addresses from an Australian directory and other sources for the work.

She was among those on the wharf in San Francisco who farewelled the first Adventist missionaries to Australia in May 1885. “As the ship sailed away toward the Golden Gate [Bridge], the departing pioneers beckoned to her and others on the wharf to follow them.”⁴

In 1893, the General Conference appointed her to serve as corresponding secretary of the Australian Tract Society.

Australia Becomes Home

Ingels arrived in Australia on May 22, 1893, and spent the next few months in Sydney before moving to Melbourne toward the end of the year. She attended the first camp meeting in Australia held at Brighton, Melbourne. She lived for a time at the Australian Bible School in Saint Kilda, Melbourne, teaching “missionary correspondence and personal work with our small literature.”⁵ As corresponding secretary, she gave a report at the Australasian Union Session in 1894 that the tract society was being “fitly styled the ‘church at work’” and was becoming “more and more so regarded.”⁶

In 1897, at the Australasian Union session (October 25-31), in Sydney, Ingels was voted in as union secretary and the first editor of the union’s new magazine for church members, Record⁷—then called the Union Conference Record. ⁸ Ingels had been secretary of the Record’s predecessor, The Gleaner.⁹ “It was decided that the Union Conference should assume the responsibility of publishing the Gleaner, and since it has become the organ of this body, it will be known as the Union Conference Record.”¹⁰

However, both appointments were short lived. The May 22, 1898, Record reported Anna Ingels’s marriage to James Hindson in the North Fitzroy church (Melbourne, Victoria)— the union president, A. G. Daniells, performed the ceremony. Two children were born to this marriage.¹¹

Anna and James Hindson moved to Perth, West Australia, where James organized and directed the West Australia Tract Society.¹² James Hindson also started the “Health Food work” in Western Australia and Anna served as secretary-treasurer for the Western Australian Mission.¹³ Anna Hindson gave a report on the “state of the work” in Western Australia at the July 1899 union session held at Avondale College.¹⁴ During these meetings, she was named “corresponding secretary” for the union—and listed among the union administrators.¹⁵ A. G. Daniells was named editor of Record with Hindson as the assistant editor.¹⁶ The next issue of Record, September 1, 1899, was the first to list editors in the masthead—both names appear.¹⁷

Several times during this period, the president of the Australasian Union (sometimes along with the vice president and secretary) was named editor with an assistant editor. It can be assumed that the assistant editor did the bulk of the work. Certainly, in this case the evidence is strong because the Record frequent report Daniells’s whereabouts. For example, the May 1, 1900, issue indicated that he was chairing meetings in Geelong, Victoria,¹⁸ and the July 1, 1900, issue reported his arrival in South Africa where he visited on his way to the General Conference session.¹⁹ Twelve months later, the July 1, 1901, Record announced his appointment as General Conference president.²⁰

For the Hindson family, Anna’s Australasian Union appointments meant a shift from Perth to Sydney. The union conference office had been moved from Melbourne to Sydney “by action of the Union Conference Executive Committee” in August 1898.²¹

Only once did Hindson return to the United States—after the death of her father in 1904 when “business connected with the settling of his estate rendered her presence in the States advisable.”²² Her family travelled with her. In her note of farewell to Record readers, there was a desire to return, but uncertainty for the future.

However, Anna Hindson was listed as an attender at the Australian Union Conference council in Melbourne in September of the following year, 1905.²³ She was re-elected as editor and also secretary of Sabbath School department at the 1906 union session.²⁴

A. W. Anderson was Record editor for a brief period from January 8, 1923 to December 17, 1923. He was then “invited” as a “writer of ability” to work on producing material containing the “message of truth for these times” into the secular press and “our own publications.” The role of editor went back to the president, vice-president, and secretary with Hindson listed as the office editor. ²⁵ Hindson became sole editor again from January 7, 1926, until her death in 1933.

Hindson’s Legacy

As noted in the introduction, Hindson had many roles and held several key positions during her time working for the church in Australia. In her obituary, A. G. Stewart, vice president of the Australian Union Conference, emphasized three of them.

The first was a seat she “occupied with dignity and discretion” on the Australasian Union Conference executive committee. For more than thrity years “continuously” she was the Sabbath School secretary. Then there was her editorial work, which, with her Sabbath School responsibilities, meant she “carried on a very wide and constant correspondent with laborers and friends in all parts of the field.”²⁶

Anna L. Hindson was the first editor of Record and was the editor when she died, after a brief illness, on November 29, 1933, at the age of 71. Of her forty years in Australia, she served as its editor for approximately 28 years and assistant editor for four more. She remains the longest serving editor of Record.

In recognition of Hindson’s editorial work, Record editors established the annual Hindson Awards in 1999 (with the first winners published in early 2000),²⁷ which recognized articles in five categories: best news article, best feature article, best devotional article, best photograph, and best letter to the editor. The “Hindsons” were awarded for ten years, ending in 2010.²⁸

Sources

“A New Household.” Union Conference Record, May 1898.

“Australasian Organisation.” Union Conference Record, January-February, 1898.

“Australian Tract Society: Sixth Annual Session.” The Bible Echo, February 12, 1894.

Brown, Nathan. “Hindson Awards 2009.” Record, January 30, 2010.

Hindson, A. L. “Farewell,” Australasian Union Record, November 1, 1904.

“Important Changes in the Record.” Union Conference Record, July 31, 1899.

Manners, Bruce, “The Hindsons.” Record, January 22, 2000.

Masthead, Union Conference Record, September 1, 1899.

Morse, G. W. “Transfer of the Medical Missionary Work to the Union Conference.” Union Conference Record, May 1, 1900.

“Nominations.” Union Conference Record, October 1, 1906.

“Notes.” Union Conference Record, August 15, 1898.

“Officers and standing committee of the Australian Union Conference.” Union Conference Record, July 31, 1899.

“Personal.” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1900.

Piper, A. H. “Recent Committee Actions.” Australasian Record, January 1, 1934.

“Please notice.” The Gleaner, December, 1897.

Stewart A. G. “Mrs. Anna L. Hindson.” Australasian Record, December 11, 1933.

“The following are in attendance.” Australasian Union Record, September 15, 1905.

“The General Conference.” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1901.

“The Record.” Union Conference Record, January-February, 1898.

“The Union Conference.” Union Conference Record, July 14, 1899.

Turner, W. G. “Digest of the Business of the Annual Council,” Australasian Record, October 29, 1923.

“Union Conference proceedings.” Union Conference Record, July 26, 1899.

Notes

1. A. H. Piper, “Recent Committee Actions” Australasian Record, January 1, 1934, 8.↩

2. A. G. Stewart, “Mrs. Anna L. Hindson,” Australasian Record, December 11, 1933, 6-7.↩

3. Ibid.↩

4. Ibid.↩

5. Ibid.↩

6. “Australian Tract Society: Sixth Annual Session,” The Bible Echo, February 12, 1894, 46.↩

7. In its history, the Adventist church’s magazine in the South Pacific has had various titles, but Record has always been part of the title. It’s used as shorthand here to cover the two titles that occurred in this time period.↩

8. “Australasian Organisation,” Union Conference Record, January-February, 1898, 23.↩

9. “Please notice,” The Gleaner, December, 1897, 28.↩

10. “The Record,” Union Conference Record, January-February, 1898, page 24.↩

11. A. G. Stewart, “Mrs. Anna L. Hindson.”↩

12. “A New Household,” Union Conference Record, May 1898, 68.↩

13. Ibid.↩

14. “The Union Conference,” Union Conference Record, July 14, 1899, 12.↩

15. “Union Conference proceedings,” Union Conference Record, July 26, 1899, pages 15, 16. See also “Officers and standing committee of the Australian Union Conference,” Union Conference Record, July 31, 1899, 1.↩

16. “Important Changes in the Record,” 1899, Union Conference Record, July 31, 18.↩

17. Masthead, Union Conference Record, 1899, September 1, 16.↩

18. G. W. Morse, “Transfer of the Medical Missionary Work to the Union Conference,” Union Conference Record, May 1, 1900, 14, 15.↩

19. “Personal,” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1900, 15.↩

20. “The General Conference,” Union Conference Record, July 1, 1901, 1, 2.↩

21. “Notes,” Union Conference Record, August 15, 1898, 92.↩

22. A. L. Hindson, “Farewell,” Australasian Union Record, November 1, 1904, 7 also a note giving the reason on page 8.↩

23. “The following are in attendance,” Australasian Union Record, September 15, 1905, 8.↩

24. “Nominations,” Union Conference Record, October 1, 1906, 67.↩

25. W. G. Turner, “Digest of the Business of the Annual Council,” Australasian Record, October 29, 1923, pages 3-4.↩

26. A.G. Stewart, “Mrs. Anna L. Hindson.”↩

27. Bruce Manners, “The Hindsons,” Record, January 22, 2000, 9.↩

28. Nathan Brown, “Hindson Awards 2009,” Record, January 30, 2010, 8.↩