The French family collection consists primarily of the papers of J. Leslie French with a scattering of other materials of his wife Edna Cumming French. The J. Leslie French materials relate to the period when he was University Pastor for Presbyterian Students at the University of Michigan. The Edna French papers pertain to University of Michigan alumnae activities, notably her involvement in fund raising for the construction of the Women's League building.
Rev. James Leslie French was born on January 3, 1877 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He his A.B. degree from the University of Michigan in 1899 and his M.A. degree in 1900 in the field of Hebrew, Philosophy and Ethics. He graduated from Hartford Theological Seminary in 1902 and was ordained at a meeting of the Grand Rapids Presbytery on July 8, 1902 in Westminster Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That same year he married Edna F. Cumming of Port Huron, Michigan. He continued his education abroad for three years: at the University of Berlin, the University of Marburg in Germany and the Sorbonne in Paris. He received his Ph.D. from Hartford Theological Seminary in 1905.
From 1905 to 1914, French was a University Pastor for Presbyterian Students at the University of Michigan. During this time he also held an instructorship in the Department of Semitics, teaching Hellenistic Greek and Hebrew, and gave full time to the University in 1913-14 as acting associate professor.
As the first full-time University pastor to students at a state-supported university, French established the Presbyterian Student Center at the University of Michigan under the sponsorship of the Tappan Presbyterian Association in 1905. French was also an early exponent of the ecumenical principle in student work, and was chairman of the committee which called together the first "Inter-denominational Conference of Church and Guild Workers in State Universities," which met in Ann Arbor in March, 1908. Under his direction the first religious census of the University was taken.
From 1914 to 1925, French was the Minister of Religious Education at Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, Toledo, Ohio. During this time he also organized and became pastor of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Toledo and built the church school unit of this new church. In 1928 he was invited as a delegate to a conference at Iowa University at which Catholics, Protestants and Jews were present. It was there that the delegates set up a co-operative basis for organization on all campuses. This meeting was the beginning of what is now the National Conference of Christian and Jews.
During the period 1925 to 1934, French was the University Pastor for Presbyterian students at the University of West Virginia at Morgantown. He was pastor of First Presbyterian Church at Caro, Michigan from 1934 to 1943 when he retired. He died on July 18, 1962.
