Stan Hoffman serves God’s people in China, Arizona and Michigan
In 1910, the Rev. Clarence Hoffman and his wife Katherine traveled to Piyeng Yang, Korea to train as missionaries. They were assigned to a Presbyterian mission in North Korea, twenty miles from the Manchurian border. The only way to get there at that time was by way of the river. Three years later Stanley Livingston Hoffman was born.
World War 1 began and the family was unable to leave for a furlough until 1919. Stan was six years old before he came to America. The family stayed in the United States for one year before returning to Korea. Stan recalls that his family always had a prayer time after breakfast each day during his growing up years.
Stan was home schooled in his early years and attended high school at the American School in Piyeng Yang. During this time Stan was greatly influenced in his faith walk by his Scoutmaster, Bill Shaw, who had been a military chaplain in World War 2. “He was a man’s man and a great Christian,” Stan says. During this time Stan learned the Westminster Shorter Catechism – all 108 questions and answers!
As career missionaries, Stan’s parents continued their work in Korea, while Stan came to the United States to attend college. He began at Davidson College in North Carolina, but eventually transferred to Wooster College in Ohio. There he met Mary Kepler, also the child of missionaries to China. They were engaged for five years while Stan attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. At the same school, Mary, who had a bachelor’s degree in music, studied to become a registered nurse. After their marriage in 1938, they moved to Detroit where Stan served his internship at Henry Ford Hospital. While working in Pontiac, their first child Ken was born.
Stan and Mary wanted to serve as missionaries in China. They went to Berkeley, California to study Chinese and prepare to go abroad. This happened to be in 1942 during World War 2 and the Board of Missions would not send anyone at that time. As a physician, Stan was facing a call-up for military duty, but learned of a need for a doctor at a Navaho Indian reservation in Arizona. From 1942 to 1945 they served on the reservation at Ft. Defiance, Arizona. During this time their daughter Jeanette was born.
In 1946 they were finally able to go to China, and they served in Canton, where their third child Kathy was born. In 1948 they were called to Siangtan, where Mary had spent early childhood years. Stan will always remember the train trip with three small children, arriving at midnight in a strange place. Mary’s brother was to meet them, but was not there due to the train’s four hour delay. So Stan engaged a rickshaw to the mission compound where he found Mary’s brother and the family was finally reunited.
The Communist takeover made life in China unsafe for missionaries, so in 1948 Stan, Mary and the children moved back to the United States. In 1953 they returned Indian service at Tuba City, Arizona, at the western end of the Navaho reservation. In 1955, they left the Indian service, and came to the Howell Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Howell, Michigan so Stan could learn more about tuberculosis that was so prevalent on the reservation. Two years later Stan and two other physicians formed the Byron Road Medical Group. Stan practiced medicine in Howell until 1988, delivering over 1,000 babies! In 1976 Stan and Mary went to South Africa for a year with The Evangelical Alliance Mission, and were later founding members of the Board of African Christian Ministries. While living in Howell, Stan and Mary were active members of their church and community.
After moving to Chelsea, Michigan in 1991, Stan and Mary became active Westminster members where they shared their knowledge of the Bible and Mary’s musical talents. Following Mary’s death in 2000, Stan moved to Ann Arbor where he leads a Bible study at his retirement center residence. He has committed to memory several chapters of Romans, and can recite various verses from other books of the Bible, and still remembers parts of the Westminster Catechism.
For many years Stan enjoyed photography, gardening and working on their eleven acre Howell property. He and Mary have three children, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
How fortunate that both Stan and Mary have shared their faith and talents here at Westminster and across the world: both true servants of God!