1866-1955

Ann Judson Fogle Wells

Mother and Grandmother of

Missionaries to China     South Carolina SC

Missionary author Rosalie Hall Hunt was a part of the second generation impacted by a godly grandmother named for Ann Judson and describes her mother’s mother, Ann Judson Fogle Wells, in a personal email:

She is my grandmother on Mama’s side and was born in Orangeburg, SC, and, yes, she was born in the late 1860’s [February 8, 1866] and given the name of that hero, Ann Judson. She was Ann Judson Fogle Wells, backbone of the WMU [Woman’s Missionary Union] in Bethel Baptist Church [close to Tindal— near Sumter], which was Mama’s and Aunt Grace’s home church. I did not get to see her often and she was one of the unusual Wells’ family members: she didn’t talk much! Ann [Hasseltine Judson] would have been proud that Grandmama bore her name. I was![1]

In her biography entitled Six Yellow Balloons, Dr. Hunt describes her grandmother:

Born in 1866, Ann’s firmly Baptist parents named her for America’s first woman missionary—the renowned Ann Hasseltine Judson—who was known as Woman of the Century in nineteenth-century America. Ann Judson Fogle was a restful person to be around, with her gentle, serene nature. That said, her intelligence and depth of faith ran deep and bore abundant fruit in the lives of her five children, producing one minister and two international missionaries. A fourth daughter became a schoolteacher and longtime Sunbeam Band director, and the fifth remained at home to care for the older family members while still managing to give an astounding number of dollars to missions, especially to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering.

Ann poured herself into her brood of five and learned to read each of her little ones and understand their particular needs and skills.[2]

Ann Judson Fogle Wells passed away on July 10, 1955, in Sumter, SC, at age 89. Her husband, though 4 years younger than Ann, died only five months after his wife’s passing in December of 1955.

Ms. Wells’ grand-daughter, Rosalie Hall Hunt, established the Ann Judson Missionary Scholarship fund at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. Proceeds from Dr. Hunt’s publication, The Extraordinary Story of Ann Hasseltine Judson: A Life Beyond Boundaries (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2018), formed the nucleus of this endowment. Earnings from the corpus is used to assist students committed to a career in Christian ministry or for students on mission trips. This fund is very alive if readers wish to contribute.

[Compiler’s note: Here is a sad snippet from another Ann Judson Wells who lost a daughter after 10 weeks:

Feb. 2d, 1868, Grace, infant daughter of Rev. J. M. and Ann Judson Wells, age 10 weeks

             She died to sin; she died to care,

            But for a moment felt the rod;

            Then rising to the viewless air,

            Spread her wings and soared to God.[3]]

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[1] Email from Rosalie Hall Hunt, March 27, 2023.

[2] Rosalie Hall Hunt, Six Yellow Balloons: An MK’s China Story (Greenville, SC: Courier Publishing, 2021), p. 29.

[3] Standard (Chicago, Illinois) February 27, 1868, p. 6.

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