[Memory Book Compiled by One of the First YMCA Workers Deployed During the First World War, Who Later Served as Missionary in North Dakota]

[Various locations in Great Britain, France, North Dakota, and Massachusetts, 1921. Very good.. [19] leaves, illustrated with about ninety unique photographs, documents, vouchers, artwork, newspaper clippings, and other ephemeral items. Large quarto. Contemporary red cloth lettered in gilt on front cover, string tied. Minor edge wear, corners worn. Album leaves toned, but contents generally sound. A unique assemblage of original materials and ephemera documenting the experiences of Richard Greeley Preston, a young Princeton student recruited to work for the YMCA in Europe and Mesopotamia. Preston was attending Princeton in 1917 when a senior International YMCA executive secured his service, along with twenty-three other Princetonians, to support the British Army on the front lines. By the time the students arrived in London, the United States had entered the war, so instead of working for the British Army, Preston was directed to establish YMCA sites at Besancon and Ponsex-les-Forges in France. Preston applied for a military commission in 1918 and was appointed as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army's Sanitation Corps in March and then assigned to the 41st Division. Following the Armistice, Preston enrolled in the American School at the University of Paris and completed courses in French History, literature, thought, and politics. After returning to the United States, Preston became a missionary in Marion, North Dakota for the Congregational Home Missionary Society despite not having any formal theological background. In 1933, he accepted a position of rector at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, which he held until his retirement in 1958.

The present scrapbook memorializes much of Preston's activities beginning with his YMCA recruitment in 1917 and proceeding through his missionary work in 1921. The scrapbook opens with Preston's YMCA Certificate of Identification, dated April 24, 1917, illustrated with a photographic portrait of him, listing his nationality as "Native American," and his position as "Secretary of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association of North America." Thereafter the album includes material documenting Preston's YMCA service in France, his brief time at the American School in Paris, and then his missionary experience in North Dakota. The YMCA material includes a document assisting Preston with communicating with English students, a letter detailing the Princeton students serving for the YMCA, event invitations, YMCA patches, a November 15, 1918 memorandum to the Sanitary Department authored by Preston, various documents and ephemeral items in French, telegrams, an American Red Cross travel pass, Preston's honorable discharge certificate, and more. His educational experiences in Paris include a 1919 certificate listing the classes completed by Preston, theater tickets, French currency, class paperwork, and more. Preston's time in North Dakota is documented through a letter from the Congregational Home Missionary Society (CHMS), five pages of typed documents detailing Preston's travel to North Dakota, a page containing six real photo postcards of Marion and Litchville, North Dakota, and a 1921 document from the CHMS to Preston certifying him as a "licensed minister of the gospel." All but the last leaf of the album relates to Preston's service with the YMCA through his missionary work in North Dakota. The album concludes with a single letter from 1958, as well as a page of material dedicated to Preston's brother, James Preston, Sr.

A wonderful record of service related to the activities of a young Princetonian recruited to work for the YMCA in Europe and then felt the call of missionary work in the American West before serving in Massachusetts for the final twenty-five years of his career.