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Dr. Ernest E. Tuck (1888-1966) was a Methodist missionary to the Philippine Islands. He was interned in Manila by the Japanese during World War II (1942-1945).
In 1905 Tuck came to the United States from Australia as a teenager, settling in Colorado. He graduated from the University of Denver and became a Methodist minister in Denver. He later went to Boston University for graduate work in theology. At the time he finished his degree, World War I had ended and the Methodist church was launching a new world mission program. Tuck and his wife volunteered, and along with their four-year-old daughter began their mission work in India, spending five years. He then spent seven years as an Associate Secretary at the Board of Missions in New York. After another three years as a minister, in 1936 they went to the Philippines where he was appointed the superintendent of the Methodist Mission in Manila. Following the war and a brief time in the United States he returned to the Philippines to help in the rebuilding for seven years. He returned to spend five years in New York as the director of the Advance Department for the Board of Missions after which he retired in 1957. He died in 1966.
The collection is arranged in four series. The first series of correspondence contains both incoming and outgoing letters. The second series contains sermons, filed alphabetically and includes both typewritten and holograph texts, notes, and service bulletins. The third series includes the records of Methodist and United Church of Christ missionary organizations in the Philippines. The series includes minutes, rosters and other records, as well as conference publications, clippings and pamphlets related to mission work and the Philippine Islands. The fourth series contains biographical and miscellaneous items. The series includes a biography of Tuck, photographs, notebooks, and ledgers maintained by Ernest E. Tuck for a group of missionaries interned by the Japanese in Manila, Philippine Islands. These missionaries set up a financial pool to maintain themselves until more funds were available.