Harold Snuggs was an American educator and Baptist missionary whose career spanned military academies, mission schools, hospitals, and universities in both the United States and China.
The son of Rev and Mrs E T Snuggs, missionaries to China, Harold was born in 1896 in Singapore. He came to faith at the age of fourteen and was baptised into the membership of the Tung Shan Baptist Church, Canton.
He received his early education at the Bailey Military Institute in Greenwood, South Carolina. He earned a B.S. from Georgetown College (Kentucky) in 1920 and later completed an M.S. at the University of Virginia in 1931, supplementing his graduate work with further study at the University of Cincinnati, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University.
Snuggs began his professional career teaching science at the Bailey Military Institute (1920–21) and later served as professor of Biology and Physics at Judson College (1923–24). In 1922 he accepted an appointment for missionary service in China, where he would spend the majority of his career.
In 1923 he married Grace Mason and they were both sent by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to Luichau, South China. They had three children, Harold Jr, John and Margaret.
In China, Snuggs held a series of educational and administrative posts, including principal of Mission High School in Luichow (1924–25), science teacher at Pooi To Academy in Canton (1925–26), and English teacher at Pooi Ching Academy in Wuchow (1927–34). During his years in Wuchow he also served as business manager and acting superintendent of Stout Memorial Hospital, reflecting the broad responsibilities often assumed by mission personnel.
Cheung Chau
Like many South China missionaries, the Snuggs family rented a holiday home on Cheung Chau. In September 1937, Grace Snuggs and her family were in a house* on Cheung Chau, when the typhoon of that year struck. It took away their roof in the night, causing them to take refuge with their neighbours. In the account, Mrs Snuggs is mentioned and a 'ten-year-old Harold'. Younger siblings John and Margaret were likely there too. The Snuggs house also lost the part of the house with the kitchen.
Harold was probably on the mission field at this time, having just returned from a summer break on the island (July - August). It was a difficult time following the Japanese invasion of 1937 and husbands stayed on the mission field, while wives and children retreated to holiday homes (Cheung Chau in this case).
In 1939 Snuggs joined the University of Shanghai as professor of Biology, a position interrupted by the Second World War. He was interned by Japanese forces in Pootung, Shanghai in 1942 and repatriated to the United States in 1943. After the war, he returned to Shanghai in 1947 to resume his academic duties.
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*House #3A see moddsey's post.
Snuggs Pictures - 1926 Missionary Album
Sources:
The Evangelical Beacon, 19th October 1937.