From Vermont to Taebaek: The Story of Missionary Paul Kingsbury

01 · Vermont

A Farm Boy from Vermont

Missionary Paul Kingsbury was known in Korea as Kim Seung-bae. He was born in the late autumn of 1920 on Chubb Hill Farm in Cavendish, Vermont.

The farm boy went on to study for many years: at Houghton College, Yale’s Institute of Far Eastern Languages, the University of Vermont, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. In World War II he served on the European front, was wounded, and received the Purple Heart.

While volunteering in Puerto Rico he met Barbara Burkholder, who shared his calling. They married in Chicago in 1952. Barbara later wrote the history of his home place in Chubb Hill Farm and Cavendish, Vermont: A Family and Town History 1876-1960.

02 · The Call

Meeting Archer Torrey Jr. in New York

Early in 1952, looking for a way to serve in Korea, Paul Kingsbury met Archer Torrey Jr. in Manhattan. He was the father of Father Archer Torrey (Dae Chun-duk).

Torrey told him that Koreans who had lost arms and legs in the war needed help. Kingsbury decided to join that work.

That summer he and fellow missionary Dean Schowengerdt (Seo In-geun) trained at a limb shop in New York, squeezing a nine-month course into three. One learned to make artificial legs, the other artificial arms.

03 · 1952–1957

A Limb Shop After the War

Paul Kingsbury arrived in Korea in 1952, at thirty-two, while the war was still going on. Barbara could only follow the next year, after the armistice.

From September 1952 he worked with the Korea Amputee Rehabilitation Project, first in the rehabilitation department of Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital. There he taught Koreans to make prosthetic limbs, and he kept at it until 1957.

The bond with Archer Torrey Jr. carried on to his son. In 1965 Father Archer Torrey founded Jesus Abbey in Hwangji, Gangwon Province, and when the Abbey turned to dairy cattle to support itself, Kingsbury lent a hand.

04 · 1957–1974

Kim Seung-bae, Heifer Missionary

From 1957 to 1974 Paul Kingsbury served as an agricultural missionary with Heifer International. Koreans called him Kim Seung-bae.

He brought goats, dairy cows, pigs and chickens to war orphans and poor farm families, and taught them how to raise the animals, not just handed them over. He worked out of the Union Christian Service Center and the Christian Farmers’ School in Daejeon. Heifer Korea records that he spent those years supplying breeding stock and teaching farmers in North Gyeongsang Province.

Lee Jae-bok (born 1937) met him as a student at the Christian Farmers’ School, helped him with the Heifer work, and went on to run a dairy farm for the rest of his life. Photos of the Heifer missionaries still hang on the wall of his home in Andong.

A family that receives a cow
gives its first calf to a neighbor.

Heifer’s principle, Passing on the Gift, is the one MooMoo Ranch holds on to today.

05 · 1975–1982

To the Jesus Abbey Ranch

In 1975 Paul Kingsbury came to Jesus Abbey in Taebaek, Gangwon Province, with support from Mr. and Mrs. Erickson of Boston.

Around that time the Jesus Abbey ranch moved to a site ten kilometers from the Abbey. Kingsbury helped set that ranch up. He built the barn and passed on nearly twenty years of dairy experience to the community. That ranch was the Jesus Abbey Watershed Grange, today’s Samsuryeong MooMoo Ranch.

The house where the family lived at Jesus Abbey was called “Rockbury.” It still stands at the Abbey under the name Seokseong.

06 · Homecoming

Home to Chubb Hill Farm

In Korea Barbara cared for orphans and taught the Bible and English. The couple raised their four daughters there.

In 1982, after thirty years in Korea, they went home to Chubb Hill Farm. In Cavendish they served the Cavendish Historical Society and their local church. Barbara’s book was published by the Society.

In his last years Paul Kingsbury lived with Alzheimer’s disease. He died in 2013, at 92, with his family beside him.

07 · Record

Timeline

1920

Paul Alfred Kingsbury born on Chubb Hill Farm, Cavendish, Vermont.

1940s

Serves on the European front in World War II; wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

Early 1952

Meets Archer Torrey Jr. in Manhattan. Learns prosthetic making in three months alongside Dean Schowengerdt.

1952

Marries Barbara Burkholder in Chicago. From September, teaches prosthetic making at Severance Hospital with the Korea Amputee Rehabilitation Project.

1953

Barbara arrives in Korea after the armistice.

1957–1974

Heifer agricultural missionary "Kim Seung-bae," working from the Union Christian Service Center and the Christian Farmers' School in Daejeon.

1965

Father Archer Torrey founds Jesus Abbey in Hwangji, Gangwon Province.

1975–1982

Lives at Jesus Abbey and helps set up the ranch at its new site ten kilometers away. The family lives in "Rockbury" (today's Seokseong).

1982

Returns to Chubb Hill Farm after thirty years in Korea.

2013

Dies at 92.

Sources · Kingsbury family records and Heifer Korea, “Heifer and Korea, Part 2: Heifer’s Work in Korea after the Korean War.”

Epilogue

The Kingsbury Project

MooMoo Ranch wants to pass on what it received.

Ninety-two cows sent by American churches in 1963, two cows sent from Seattle to Jesus Abbey in 1966, and the animals and skills shared by agricultural missionaries like Paul Kingsbury: Korean dairy farming grew on that help.

MooMoo Ranch calls its work of carrying Korea’s dairy system on to North Korea “the Kingsbury Project.” It begins on the very ranch he helped set up.

Passing the gift on to the next person.

The story of the young man who built Jesus Abbey’s first house is told in The Story of Brother Luke Ahn.