Elizabeth Gray Vining and Mary Hoxie Jones letters

Mary Hoxie Jones (1904-2003) was born to Rufus Matthew Jones and Elizabeth Bartram Cadbury on July 27, 1904, in Haverford, Pennsylvania. She attended Haverford Friends School, The Baldwin School, and Mount Holyoke College. From 1927 to 1929, Jones was the secretary for the Young Friends Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and she also worked as her father’s secretary from 1929 to 1934. She lived in England, China, and New York City, in the mid-1930s, working as a writer. Jones was on the staff of the American Friends Service Committee from 1939 to 1951. She traveled frequently, including numerous trips to England, but also other locations in Europe, China, Japan, and Africa. In 1936, Jones began living with Frances Canby Ferris, who was the principal of Haverford Friends School from 1919 to 1946. Frances moved to Devon Manor after breaking a hip in 1972, and died in 1976. In 1951, Jones began working with her father’s papers in Quaker & Special Collections at Haverford College, where she became a research associate in 1962. She received an honorary degree from Haverford College in 1985. She was a long-time member of Friends Historical Association. Jones was the author of Arrows of Desire, Beyond the Stone, Mosaic of the Sun, At the Point of a Lancet: History of the Canton (China) Hospital, and Swords into Plowshares. She died December 26, 2003.

Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999) was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Her parents were John Gray and Anne Moore Gray. She attended Germantown Friends School and Bryn Mawr College (class of 1923). During her early adult years, Vining worked as a librarian, earning her degree from the Library School of Drexel Institute in 1926. She met her husband, Morgan Fisher Vining, during her time working in the library of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. After her husband’s death in 1933, Vining returned to Germantown and was brought back in touch with her Quaker roots. She joined Germantown Meeting in 1934. She wrote 11 books, including a Newberry Award winning children’s book entitled Adam of the Road (1942). Vining also worked for the American Friends Service Committee in 1946, as a tutor for Akihito, the crown prince (and later emperor) of Japan. Her later writing reflected a strong interest in Japanese culture as well as her close relationship with the Japanese royal family. Some of her popular books include: Windows for the Crown Prince (1952), Return to Japan (1960), The Virginia Exiles (1955), Friend of Life: A Biography of Rufus M. Jones (1958), and Being Seventy: The Measure of a Year.