William Cameron Townsend
| William Cameron Townsend | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
July 9, 1896 Eastvale, California |
| Died | April 23, 1982 (aged 85) Waxhaw, North Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Santa Ana High School Graduated in 1914 Occidental College (1914–17) |
| Occupation |
Missionary Linguist |
| Spouse(s) | Elvira Townsend (née Malmstrom) (Jul 9, 1919 – Dec 23, 1944) Elaine Townsend (née Mielke) (Nov 6, 1915 – July 14, 2007) |
| Children | Grace Goreth (née Townsend) Joy Tuggy (née Townsend) Elainadel (née Townsend) William Crowell Townsend |
| Parent(s) | William Townsend Molly Townsend |
William Cameron Townsend (July 9, 1896 – April 23, 1982) was a prominent twentieth-century American Christian missionary who founded Wycliffe Bible Translators and Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL International), both of which have long had as their emphases translations of the Bible in minority languages and the facilitation of literacy in minority languages.
Not many sources report the details of William “Cam” Townsend before he began work as a foreign missionary. Born in 1896 into a lower-middle-class family of Southern California, Townsend attended Occidental College in Los Angeles but dropped out to serve several years as a salesman for the Los Angeles Bible House.
Under the auspices of the Los Angeles Bible House he sailed to Guatemala in 1917 to sell Spanish Bibles near Antigua. After two years he joined the Central American Mission (CAM), a fundamentalist conglomeration and brainchild of some of the 19th century’s most renowned Protestant revivalists that had parceled Central America into various regions for evangelization. CAM advocated that the Millennial Kingdom of Peace would come after the Second Coming of Christ and viewed the foreign mission as necessary to bring the Word to any and all people possible before the turn of the millennium. Unlike his predecessors, Townsend did not deem social reform a wasted effort. He also noticed that CAM’s message, spread exclusively in Spanish, could not reach the monolingual majorityof the indigenous population.
...
Wikipedia