(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
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He was born on June 9, 1875 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, the son of Joseph Oscar Shelton, at that time a carpenter, and of Emma Rosabelle (Belles) Shelton. When he was five years of age the family moved to Kansas, and his boyhood was spent there on a farm.
Camp meetings and a country church were the background of his religious development and his elementary education was acquired in the district school. In 1900 he entered the medical department of Kentucky University, at Louisville, and graduated in 1903, the financial means for his course coming in part from a scholarship, in part from his wife's earnings as a teacher, and in part from his own labor.
When he was seventeen he taught his first school, and at the age of twenty went to the Kansas State Normal College at Emporia. His course there was interrupted by a few months of service in the army during the Spanish-American War, but he resumed it after being mustered out.
On completing his medical course he was appointed a missionary to China by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society of Cincinnati. Shortly before sailing, in the autumn of 1903, he was ordained to the Christian ministry. The Society asked him to help Dr. Susie Rijnhart with a mission on the Tibetan border. She had lost her husband and child while undertaking a mission in Tibet, but wished to return and for two years had been looking in vain for a physician to accompany her.
They arrived in Tachienlu, in Szechwan, near the Tibetan border, in 1904. Here Shelton studied Tibetan and Chinese and in due course began the varied life of a pioneer missionary, preaching, practising medicine, and itinerating, chiefly to care for the sick or for those wounded in the border skirmishes of the region.
In 1908 he moved to Batang, farther inland and nearer his ultimate objective, Tibet. Here, with his colleagues, he established a mission station.
From Batang he made long journeys in the difficult mountain region, healing and preaching. He and his adventurous life made a marked appeal to the churches of his denomination in America, and during his two furloughs he spoke widely among them. Early in 1920, in Yennan, while on the way out from Batang for one of these furloughs, he was captured by bandits, was held by them for over two months, and suffered greatly before his escape. While in America he published Pioneering in Tibet (1921).
A few months after his return to his post, when he was hoping that his dream of reaching Lhasa was about to come true, he was shot by robbers a few miles from Batang and died as a result of the wound.
Albert Leroy Shelton achieved the status of a "missionary-hero" in Batang in the Kham region of eastern Tibet, treated a great variety of patients, including Chinese soldiers, took charge of a school, preached. He authored popular works "Life among the People of Eastern Tibet", "Pioneering in Tibet" (1921) about his travels and his exploits in a war torn land. He also collecting Tibetan art and artifacts and sold them and his photographs to the Newark Museum for more than $4, 000.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
He was an ardent sportsman and an excellent shot. He won the confidence and respect of Tibetans and Chinese, partly by his friendliness and bluff manliness, partly by his sense of humor, partly by his commanding physique, but chiefly by his sterling character.
Quotes from others about the person
Shelton, in the words of his biographer, was "a man who craved both adventure and social esteem; a doctor who practiced medicine intermittently; a missionary who seldom preached; a devout family man who endangered himself and his family in a perilous post. "
In 1899 he married Flora Beal, a fellow student. His wife accompanied him to China, but did not continue on to Batang. They had two children.
