Frances Persons (nee Jessop)

Frances Persons (nee Jessop)

1913-2004

Frances “Lois” Jessop was born in Chadwell, England March 1913.  She came to the United States in 1929. After graduating from the Chicago Evangelistic Institute she enrolled at Asbury College, but interrupted her studies to service as a missionary with the Methodist Episcopal Church’s Old Umtali Mission in Southern Rhodesia beginning 1937. There she taught in the Bible Institute, edited a journal for the mission and assisted the mission director. After three years she returned to Asbury to finish her degree.

In 1941, she married Maurice E. Persons whom she had met as a fellow student at Chicago Evangelistic Institute and who had also been in Southern Rhodesia.  A year later, the Persons returned to Africa as Methodist missionaries where Mr. Persons served in a number of capacities between 1947 and 1968 in Liberia and the Congo.

Mrs. Person served as a high school teacher, conducted classes for the development of African women and taught Swahili to new missionaries.  They return returned to the Congo in 1977 where they served until retirement in Phoenix, Arizona in 1980. Mrs. Person died June 2003.  Mr. Persons died 2004.

Reference

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