Reverend William Henry and Ellen Scranton Belden, American Board Missionaries to Turkey, gave birth to a family of five children: Twins Mary Megie (OC 1903) and Ellen Scranton (OC 1903) were born 23 November 1879 in Constantinople (now Istanbul) Turkey, William Henry (OC 1909) was born in New York, N.Y. in 1883, Evelena (OC 1909) was born in Bridgeton, N.J. on 20 February 1885, and Charles Selden (enrolled OC 1908-09, d. 1952) was born in Bridgeton, NJ on 14 May 1889. In 1898, the widowed Mrs. Belden moved to Oberlin, built the house at 287 W. College St., and sent all her children to Oberlin College. The following are biographical sketches of the five children of William Henry and Ellen Scranton Belden.

Ellen Scranton Belden Taylor (1879-1968)

Ellen graduated from the Oberlin Academy in 1899, and from Oberlin College in 1903. She then taught English at Cando High School in North Dakota, at Glendale College in Cincinnati, and at Elmira College in New York. She left Elmira in 1908 to marry Dr. William Haverfield Taylor ('99). Ellen and Will lived in Youngstown, Ohio where he practiced medicine until his death in 1933. They had two children, Ellen Scranton Taylor in 1911, and Mary Wisner Taylor in 1918. After her husband's death Ellen made her home in Elmira with her sister, Mary, until her sister's death in 1963. During this time she and her sister wrote a book, Say Not the Struggle, and instituted a series of literary afternoons in their home called "talks and teas," where her talks focused on new plays and novels. She also wrote short stories and plays, produced on various local stages.

Mary Megie Belden (1879-1963)

Mary graduated from Oberlin College in 1903 and received her Ph. D. from Yale University in 1919. She held teaching posts in English at Blackburn College, Carlinville, Ill.; the College of Emporia, Kansas; Goucher College, Baltimore; Lake Erie College, Painesville, Ohio; Oberlin College and Elmira College. She also served as dean of women at Whitworth College, Tacoma, WA. She taught at Elmira College for 25 years, retiring in 1941. She was the author of The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote, a number of articles, and a novel on college life, with her sister, Say Not the Struggle.

Evelina Belden Paulson (1885-1966)

Evelina graduated from Oberlin College in 1909 and went on to a long career in social work. She was the first social service secretary of the Chicago Boys Court, the first such court in the nation. While a special agent for the Federal Children's Bureau, Mrs. Paulson directed and wrote the first field study of juvenile courts in the United States. She married Henry Thomas Paulson in Oberlin in 1922. They had two children, Mary Evelina Paulson, born in 1923 and Henry Belden Paulson born 1927. Both Mary and Belden graduated from Oberlin College, Mary in 1946 and Belden in 1950. She lived in five social settlements, including Hull House and Chicago Commons. She was executive secretary of the Social Service Division of the American Red Cross Commission to Poland after World War 1. From 1940 to 1942 she was director of the Protestant Women's Protectorate in Chicago, and she was president of the Oberlin Women's Club of Chicago. In addition to a number of government publications and magazine articles, she was author of a book, From Creche to Creed.

William Henry Belden (1883-1948)

William entered the Oberlin Academy in 1901 and graduated from Oberlin College in 1909. He received his Master of Arts from Ohio State University in 1926. From 1909 to 1920 he lived in western Canada and worked in agricultural endeavors near Chinook, Alberta. He taught in Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta, 1920-24. From 1924 to 1926 he lived in Columbus, Ohio, where he taught and enrolled in courses at Ohio State University. During the 1926-27 academic year, William Belden taught at the Oregon State Agricultural College in Corvallis. From 1927 to 1934 he taught in Kalamazoo College in Michigan, after which he became chief clerk for Kalamazoo County in Rural Rehabilitation work. In December of 1928 he married Sylvia Alford Osborne. They had one son, William Henry, Jr., and she had two children from a previous marriage, John Osborne, and Frances Osborne-Gibson.

Charles Selden Belden (1889-1952)

Charles "Selden" attended Oberlin Public Schools, graduating in 1908. He attended Oberlin College during the school year of 1908-1909 and again in the fall of 1909. In the spring of 1910, he joined his brother, William Henry Belden Jr. in Alberta, Canada where they staked their claim on two adjoining homesteads. He pursued dry land farming for twelve years during which time he earned extra income taking photographs of the development of the new province, including documenting the building of the Canadian National Railroad through eastern Alberta. He married Coral Phoebe Fowler, a schoolteacher from Calgary, Alberta in July 1918. They lived on the homestead in Chinook, Alberta until 1922. Then, they moved to Long Beach, CA. where together they opened Belden Photographic Studio. Selden later worked as a salesman of automobile maintenance equipment. Selden and Coral had two children, Theodore Fowler Belden born in 1927 and Coral Alberta Belden in 1929. In 1934, he moved his family to the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California where he began a business designing and producing natural pine furniture. His photographs have been published in Down Cereal’s Memory Trails vol. 1 and vol. 2. His numerous letters and photographs sent home to Oberlin have been compiled in a booklet Prairie Letters and his Pinecraft Furniture was featured in Sunset magazine.