York County native Samuel Jordan is known as the father of modern education in Iran. He was ordained into the ministry in southeastern York County, and went overseas as a missionary. He is buried in Centre Presbyterian Church's cemetery, New Park. Background posts: Three Rhodes Scholars call York County their boyhood home and Fawn Township's magnificent Centre Presbyterian Church worthy of a looksee and Church's story links up with U.S. religious history.
All roads do lead to York.
This road includes New Park, in southeast York County; Persia, now Iran; and University of California, Irvine branch.
And it involves a minister named Samuel Martin Jordan.
The tie that binds these places comes from an e-mail written by Stewartstown's Kathryn Jordan. Samuel Jordan is Kathryn's late husband's uncle - Uncle Mart.
Here are the links:
- In 1898, Samuel Jordan was ordained as a Presbyterian minister at Centre Presbyterian Church, New Park. He and his wife left a short time later to travel to Persia as missionaries.
- Their work in Persia's educational system caught the attention of the Shah's children and other wealthy Persians, who enrolled their children in the mission's schools.
- The missionary's contributions are so respected by Iranians that Dr. Fariborz Maseeh, of the Massiah Foundation has led the establishment of the Samuel Martin Jordan Foundation at Cal Irvine.
- Maseeh and others have visited York County to collect Jordan family artifacts that will be displayed as a memorial.
Dr. Maseeh's comments to the York Daily Record/Sunday News (6/10/09): "(Samuel Jordan) is a very larger-than-life character for educated Iranians. He as an American dedicated almost his entire adult life to educating, nurturing and teaching Iranians. . . . That to me is the biggest act of generosity.
"That's why he is very important to me. He should be recognized for what he has done in my culture."
Kathryn Jordan's e-mail: "I have been amazed to learn that the young Iranians hold him in such high esteem," she wrote.
The York Daily Record story Maseeh said might help the Stewartstown Historical Society with a memorial for Jordan. That would start Jordan down the highway of honor in his native land, as he is on roads in Iran and California.
Fariborz Maseeh talks about Samuel Jordan.
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