Barbara (Beach) Alter (1921 - 2014)

Born 1921 in Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Died 9 Nov 2014 at about age 93 in Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

1920 Birth and Parents

Barbara Beach was born 19 December 1920 in Connecticut. She was the daughter of David Nelson Beach, Jr (1894-1990) and his wife Marguerite Mills(1895–1989). ^[1]

Barbara herself was born in Connecticut to the Reverend David Nelson and Marguerite Beach in 1921. ^[2]

Alter’s father, David Nelson Beach Jr., was a New England minister who led a number of churches, including Center Church in New Haven. Her grandfather was president of the Bangor Theological Society in Maine, and her greatuncle was a missionary in China in the late 1800s. ^[3]

This lineage shaped Alter’s faith, but also set up an intellectual conflict. As an 18-year-old philosophy major at Connecticut College, she struggled to reconcile her Christian beliefs with a broader understanding of the world. “I ultimately decided theology is a poem that doesn’t define God, that can’t define God,” she says.^[3]

Early Life

In 1930 she lived in Belmont, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA with her parents.^[1]

In 1935 and 1936 she lived in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts^[1]

In 1940 she lived in Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, USA with her parents.^[1]

1941 Marriage

In 1941 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA she married James Payne Alter (1919–1983). He died 7 Nov 1983 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA^[1]

After college, she married James Alter, a social activist and Yale Divinity School graduate who was jailed in 1940 for his pacifist convictions. The couple was eager to set out for India, where Jim had grown up in a Presbyterian missionary family, but they had to wait until the end of World War II. ^[3]

Tennessee

Meanwhile, they tackled anti-poverty work in Tennessee, where the first of their three children, Martha, was born. (See profile of Martha Alter Chen ’65, page 34.)^[3]

1945 Karachi

She and her husband James Alter served the American Presbyterian Church as missionaries. ^[2]

They first landed in Karachi in October 1945, soon after travel opened after WW II.^[2]

Once the wartime ban on travel ended and they went to India, the family “did whatever the church needed of us,” says Alter, who learned to speak Hindi and Urdu. ^[3]

1948 Mussoorie

After 1948, she and Jim moved to Mussoorie, north India, and lived and worked there until his death in November 1983.^[2]

Martha and her brothers, John and Thomas, studied at the Woodstock School; three generations of Alters had attended the interdenominational boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas.^[3]

(Today, John is chaplain at a private school in Virginia, and Tom is a well-known Bollywood actor. ^[3]

Missionary

Barbara focused on being of service to those around her, rather than proselytising or evangelising. Her understanding of herself was as a Christian who was firmly committed to social justice. She spoke to me often about the influences on her decisions to practice an ecumenical form of liberal Protestantism, from early childhood through retirement. She saw these influences coming from her family, Connecticut College and the New England Student Christian Movement. Her beliefs and faith were heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, as well as the French Benedictine monk Abhishiktananda who moved to India in 1948, seeking a more radical form of spiritual life.^[2]

Barbara and many others of her generation who served as missionaries were interested in pacifism, ecumenism and cultural pluralism. Their influence reaches from their work in a variety of international settings to their own children and grandchildren, many of whom have chosen to continue working in the midst of poverty and injustice to enact positive social change. They want their stories heard at a time when they believe that fundamentalist evangelicals dominate the history of Christianity around the world.^[2]

For Barbara Beach Alter, becoming a missionary was both a natural outcome for a minister’s daughter and a somewhat unlikely calling for a woman who wanted no part in evangelical proselytizing. ^[3]

However, the 35 years “Barry” Alter spent as a missionary in India turned out to be the ideal way to fulfill both her commitment to Christianity and to “secular humanism.”^[3]

Now 92 and a resident of an assisted living facility in Massachusetts, Alter is still the same vivacious, sharpminded woman who landed in Karachi — at that time it was still part of India — on Oct. 27, 1945.^[3]

Rajpur

She describes their time in India as living “in the midst” of others both physically and spiritually.^[3]

Jim established the Christian Retreat and Study Center in Rajpur, but the Alters did not want to impose their religious traditions, such as Western hymns, on those who attended the center.^[3]

“We ran the study center like an ashram. You washed your own dishes, you waited on your own table,” Alter says.^[3]

Church Visitor

Newly widowed, Alter wanted to be useful. She became a church visitor for the Center Church in New Haven, worked in a sewing store, cared for her elderly parents and volunteered for United Way.^[3]

In 1992, Cathy Corman, a new mother of triplets, needed someone to lend a hand. She sought help from a volunteer program for seniors, and the program’s director suggested Alter. Corman was skeptical when she was told that Alter had been a Christian missionary. But Alter came highly recommended, so the new mother decided to give her a try. “In walked this white-haired, upright 72-year-old,” Corman recalls. “She promptly took one baby from my arms. … It was just instant love between the two of us.” A freelance journalist with a doctorate in American studies, Corman has traveled to India with Alter and is producing a documentary titled “In the Midst” that examines the lives of Alter and other liberal Presbyterian missionaries. ■^[3]

2014 Death

She died November 2014 in Marlborough, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA ^[1]

Children

1. Thomas Beach Alter. Alter attended the International School Woodstock in Landor. It was in his childhood that he inculcated his love for the language Urdu which translated into his passion later in life. His father Rev. James Alter used to recite the Bible in Urdu and Hindi for those who were not familiar with English in their Ashram at Rajpur. Alter often took part in these Urdu and Hindi Biblical recitals along with his father. Alter after his schooling left for Yale University. However, dissatisfied he returned after a year and joined a school in Haryana as a teacher.^[4]

Recently, the whole family gathered in Mussoori to celebrate the wedding of Tom’s son, an Indian sportswriter who covers cricket.)^[3]

The family returned to the United States in the early 1980s, but Jim’s health was faltering. He died in 1983, and his family buried his ashes in India.^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5} D. King. Ancestry.com. King Family Tree. Profile for Barbara Beach Accessed 31 January 2024 jhd
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5} Siraj Khan Remembering Barbara Alter, A Lady of Substance. Times of India, April 6, 2015. Accessed 31 January 2024 jhd
3. ↑ ^{3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16} Beth Hamilton. Bearing witness: Barbara Beach Alter reflects on a life of service Accessed 30 January 2024 jhd
4. ↑ Tanuja Bhakuni. Tom Alter and Delhi. 13 March 2021. Accessed 30 January 2024 jhd