Revision as of 19:48, 13 January 2022

Elmo Clair "E.C." Hadley was born on December 10, 1894 at Watseka, Iroquois, Illinois. He was the eldest of three children of Zimri Elmer Hadley (b. Watseka, IL) and Docia W. Weaver Hadley (b. Mountain Home, AL), who were married on Dec. 28, 1892 in home of Elmer's parents in Watseka. Elmer & Docia were active Quakers, from a long tradition within that spiritual heritage.

When E.C. registered for the draft on June 5, 1917 during World War One, he requested exemption as a conscientious objector on the grounds that he was employed as a Quaker preacher.

On July 16, 1919, E.C. was issued a passport for a journey commencing Aug. 14 of that same year settling on Sept. 22 at Bamako, the capital of the West African nation Mali.

His initial trip to Mali was sponsored by one of the oldest missionary sending agencies in the U.S., Gospel Missionary Union, known since 2003 as Avant Ministries. This agency was the first evangelical mission to enter Mali, as well as Ecuador (of which Roger Youdarian, one of the five 1956 martyrs was included). It is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and has since added a Canadian HQ at Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was founded in 1892 by the Secretary of the Kansas State Y.M.C.A., George S. Fisher, whose parents had served the Lord in Jamaica. In 1975, the Evangelical Union of South America (inaugurated at the Keswick Convention in Liverpool, England in 1911 merged with GMU, and in 2019 Camino Global (formerly Central American Mission) joined. It has been supported since 1916 by the Church of the Open Door in Leavenworth, Kansas.

In 1920, E.C. requested citizenship to be able to return to an address in Kansas City when his term expired.

In 1925, he returned to Africa. Later, while on furlough in Switzerland, he met Lydia Chevalley, who became his wife, and may have been his introduction to the PB, given their historic presence in that country since the 1840's. After E.C. contracted a tropical disease that forced his return to the U.S.

In 1931, E.C. founded (KLC) Grace & Truth in Danville, Illinois in his kitchen, today one of the largest distributors of free Christian literature to the third world, publishing gospel and ministry tracts and booklets in twelve languages, producing about 18 million tracts annually. They also publish a monthly periodical Grace & Truth Magazine (1933-present) that circulates in 71 countries with devotional and doctrinal articles to encourage and edify believers.vvE.C. traveled extensively as an itinerant preacher, and Lydia oversaw the work when he was absent.

From 1936 to 1950, the print shop was housed in two old railroad cars that were placed side-by-side on the property near his house, which after relocating it they were accidentally burned down.

He died in 1981 in Danville.

Sources

• Ancestry.com including but not limited to:
  • The Christian Worker: 1892 Jan - 1893 Dec., p. 75.
• Grace & Truth's website