Adelaide McDaniel

Adelaide was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 23, 1925, the eldest of seven children. While the family attended church regularly, Adelaide was most influenced by the words of a guest speaker and her long-time Sunday school teacher who introduced her to the gospel. At the age of twelve she made a decision to accept the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for her salvation. Adelaide always spoke fondly of her childhood, saying she was “a happy camper all my school days,” and took especial pride in having been Editor-in-Chief of the high school newspaper for two years.

Adelaide worked at a bank during the day while taking night classes at Philadelphia Bible College for three years. She completed her academic studies with four years at Wheaton College, receiving her B.A. in 1949, and then was appointed as a missionary by the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. While her initial thoughts were of China, when that option was closed off by the communist take-over of the country, she, instead, answered General MacArthur’s call for missionaries to Japan and set sail for Yokohama in April of 1950 aboard the tramp freighter, Flying Scud.

The ship’s arrival was delayed by a day as the captain waited out the passing of a typhoon so, when the Flying Scud sailed into Tokyo Bay, it was May 5. Adelaide was transfixed by her first sighting of land and was spellbound by the cloth koinobori windsock carp languidly swimming above the tiled rooftops signifying that it was Boy’s Day.

Among the first to move into what became jokingly known as The Convent, the Tokyo housing provided for the single ladies of the mission while attending language school, she was delighted with her new life in Japan and sent back descriptive letters to the States detailing her new surroundings and her introduction to the strange, new customs.

Adelaide Ammon married Jack McDaniel, a fellow missionary to Japan, on the mission field on March 2, 1951 during a typhoon. The account of the rain and mud-splattered wedding ceremony, complete with a flat tire fixed by the tuxedo-clad preacher, was such a hit at the mission headquarters that the Women’s Missionary Guild turned it into a skit that was performed for new missionary recruits for several years following.

The newlyweds moved into their Samurai House in the northeastern city of Sendai, a city in which they remained for the entirety of their near 40-year ministry. Five children arrived over the course of the first eleven years of marriage and proved a treasure and blessing to Adelaide. In addition to the raising of the children, she continued her ministry by teaching classes at the seminary, overseeing the radio Bible-correspondence program, assisting in church planting and playing the piano and organ during church services.

Adelaide always looked forward to the summer respite from the island country’s suffocating humidity, vacationing in the Japan Alps town of Karuizawa where the family owned a four-bedroom “plywood mansion,” purchased from an American airman returning to the States after the U.S. occupation of Japan ended. She loved the cool, mountain air and walking the mountain trails, browsing the village shops, and being revitalized by the special speakers invited from around the world to speak at the Union Church.

A keen observer of Japanese culture, Adelaide studied tea ceremony and ikebana flower arranging for many years and treasured all things Japanese even long into retirement. In short, she loved Japan and the Japanese people.

Retiring in 1988 after almost 40 years on the mission field, the McDaniels lived in Plainwell, Michigan until moving to Grand Rapids in 1995, and to Covenant Village in November 2004. Adelaide made many friends at The Village and, always handy (she was, after all, a carpenter’s daughter) enjoyed sewing, making quilts, writing for the newsletter and participating in various craft and painting classes.

Adelaide passed away at Covenant Village of the Great Lakes on September 24, 2021 at the age of 96 and will join her husband, Jack, and her grandson, Ed Oliveira, in heaven. She is survived by her younger brother, Dick (Sandy) Ammon; and her five children: Joy (Glenn) Dennis, Richard (Julie) McDaniel, Judi (Don) Francis, Ladd (Yumiko) McDaniel and Jean (Tanny) Sison and 13 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. She will be greatly missed by all.

When I in righteousness at last, Thy glorious face I shall see; When all the weary night has passed, And I awake to thee; To view the glories that abide, Then and only then, will I be satisfied

Wm. Hendrickson