Eva Foster, a Methodist missionary, received 24 letters and 1 newspaper clipping while stationed in Singapore and after returning to the United States. Foster received letters from her mother, who provided social and religious news from Portland, Oregon. After returning to the United States, Eva received letters from female missionaries, who discussed their religious work in China and Southeast Asia.
Foster received 14 letters from her mother, dated between November 5, 1893, and December 18, 1895. Foster's mother provided social news from Portland, Oregon, and shared information about the administrative affairs of Portland University. She also discussed the work of female missionaries in Asia and commented on Portland's religious life. One of her 2 undated letters includes mention of the effects of a financial downturn. Foster also received 2 letters from her brother Herbert (August 19, 1895, and November 15, 1899).
After returning to Portland in the mid-1890s, Foster received 7 letters from female friends living at Mount Sophia, Singapore, in 1897 and 1898. May B. Lilly, Foster's most frequent correspondent, wrote 4 of these letters. The women described their work for the Malaysia Mission of the Methodist Church's Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and provided news of a local school and of missions throughout Southeast Asia. Lilly drew a floor plan in her letter of April 26, 1897. The final item is an undated newspaper clipping regarding a speech that Marion B. Baxter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union delivered at Portland's First Congregational Church.
