Tribute to Reuben Archer Torrey Jr.
by Reuben Archer Torrey III
This book moved me deeply. Again and again as I reread it recently I was stirred to tears. This great man was my father! During the years that I lived with him (I left home at age 17) I did not take in what sort of man he was. I was vaguely aware that he served on the Famine Relief Commission and that he had introduced some kind of improved cotton to the rural area around us, but that was all. At home, he joined the family for afternoon tea at 4 PM and then promptly, at 4:30 he was back to work. I had no idea of what his work was. Now my sister has found his faithful letters to Grandmother and filled in all the tremendous gaps in our knowledge of our father. There is so much that we are discovering about him for the first time.
After I left home at 17 to go to college in the USA, I had only glimpses of my father when he was working for the Board of Foreign Missions. When he returned to China and then was repatriated on the "Gripsholm," and arrived back in the USA, I was on board ship as a merchant seaman, somewhere out at sea, probably in the Mediterranean war zone. Again, he visited me briefly in my parish in Darien, Georgia, but he left Mother with me and returned to his assignment. Again, I was only vaguely aware of what was going on until he returned again to the USA with only one arm.
The loss of his arm, in God's plan, opened the way for him to go to Korea and set up the Amputee Rehabilitation ministry in a very simple way in Taejon. It has now expanded to an 8-story building at Severance Medical Center. While in Korea he and Mother met Bishop John Daly of the Anglican Church in Korea and this led the way to my being called to Korea to set up St. Michael's Theological Seminary (now the Song Kong Hoi University). I saw glimpses of him in Korea and then he returned to the USA.
Thus it is, that in reading my sister's book, I have met my father for the first time, as it were! It has been an emotional meeting for me. For the rest of you, I hope it was stimulating and encouraging.
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R.A. Torrey Jr.
Man of Action, No Writings
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