Anna Ladd Bartleman: Searching for the Whole Picture
Join historian, researcher, educator, and revivalist, Dr. Dony Donev on his journey to find a photograph of a mother of the early Pentecostal movement. This article was presented as a paper at the Society of Pentecostal Studies annual convention in March 2025.
The uncertainty in defining Anna Bartleman’s role as a minister, comes with the lack of a definite image. With preserved photos of early Pentecostal women like Phoebe Palmer, Lucy Farrow, William Seymour’s wife and even Agnes Ozman, it would be plausible that a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman would also be readily available. Especially when just a quick search returns photos of her husband Frank as young adult, mid-life preacher, missionary to Russia with a typical winter hat and even a portrait drawing. The astonishment grows even further as Frank’s lament of the early death of their first-born child in his 1909 book My Story “The Latter Rain” is accompanied with a photo of daughter Esther, obviously cut out from a larger family photo. But once again no photo of wife Anna.
With this quick observation in mind, a Pentecostal researcher now turns into the appropriate archives at Flower, Dixon, ORU only to find out that a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman is not to be found in any known Pentecostal library yet. Quite surprised, I then turned to several secondary sources and publishers. Among many worth mentioning were: Azusa Books that has encapsulated in many publication’s insights of ethnic and cultural struggles among early Pentecostals and the Zion Christian Ministry that has presented a chronological parallel of all Bartleman’s writings in one homogenous story of his life and ministry. They too had never seen a picture of Anna.
In my naïve persistence in the weeks following, I even reached out via friends to noted Pentecostal theologians and historians like De Arteaga (Lucy F. Farrow: The Forgotten Apostle), Faupel (The Everlasting Gospel), Ruthven, Macchia, Lathrop, Bundy, and many more. None of them has seen a picture of Frank Bartleman’s wife, but I was given a helpful hint to contact Dr. Robeck at Fuller being thoughtfully forewarned, “If he hasn’t seen her photo, no one has!”
I persisted on my own terms and contacted friends in Bulgaria with whom we have done research before – all serious scholars with serious intentions. Among them were the son of a Rousse Methodist pastor sentenced in the Pastor’s Trials staged by the communists in 1948-49, who had made it the purpose in life to uncover secret police archives in Bulgaria. With his diligent research back in the day, we found the books of minutes of the Rousse Methodist church and the Rousse Assemblies of God with all attached correspondence, which were all thought destroyed by the communists. Anna’s adopted family oversaw all Methodist missions in Bulgaria up until 1890 and it was plausible that at least their family photo would be in the archives.
Next was another friend, a Harvard graduate, whose dissertation on the Ottoman Empire helped me some two decades ago to discover the personal translation notes of a Bulgarian priest who rendered the first modern Bulgarian New Testament in 1840. While everyone else was searching for the diary notes at Bulgaria’s National Library, we discovered it stored with virtually no public access in the office of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchy just a block down the street.
Finally, to my aid came a colleague who, at the dawn of democracy in Bulgaria, created the Decommunization web-portal dedicated to revealing lost archival records of communist crimes. Around 2007-2008, together we unveiled the secret dossiers of 17 communist agents infiltrated as pastors in various evangelical churches during the Regime to effectively control the life and work of Bulgaria’s evangelical movement in the years to come.
All our combined attempts to find anything on Anna-Ladd Bartleman were in vain. The Methodist archives in Bulgaria contained no pictures from that early period. Bulgaria’s National Library and Archives hardly existed during the times when the Ladds ministered in the country. And as to the National Archives, Bulgaria had virtually no pre-1900s adoption legislation or records. As a last attempt in Bulgaria, I consulted the little remaining museum collections of the primary school in Svishtov (Sistof) and the school for girls in Lovetch (Lofcha) both of which the Ladds oversaw as part of their missionary assignment in Bulgaria. As it was not clear if Anna attended any of those missionary schools, except primary, being only eight years old when adopted and 12 upon leaving Bulgaria never to return there again. And with having no record of Anna, the missionary schools did not have her photo either.
During the Christmas break of 2020, I finally worked out enough courage to email Dr. Robeck with my Brill Encyclopedia article on Anna and a request for help. To my surprise, he emailed me back the next day with tons of information and continued to do so in the days that followed assisting my search in every way possible to the point of even providing every address where the Bartlemans lived. Unfortunately, no picture of Anna was found in his personal archive either. He was told by Bartleman’s son John that all family photos remained with daughter Ruth Bulloti never to be seen again. At this point as even Dr. Robeck “hasn’t seen” a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman, my search was to be over. At least on the higher academia side…
I did succeed in following the connection with Barlteman’s daughter, Ruth Margaret Bulloti, and discovered a masterfully created Bush family website managed by a Ph.D. researcher and librarian from the University of Wisconsin. Though his family tree compiled an enormous amount of information, as to uncle Frank Bush who married Ruth Margaret, it only had the family names and an old address from the census. All the Bulloti and Bush children were now deceased, and finding their grandchildren was a task of its own.
This new challenge led me to a wider search through Ancestry, Family Search and various other family tree databases. There were hundreds of searches already created on Frank’s side, but when it came down to his wife, she was only mentioned by name, birth and marriage. Anna’s side of the family had been researched just a few times more recently between 2017-2019. I managed to contact all names listed, assuming some were family members or close relatives. Only a few responded back and none of them had ever seen a picture of Anna. On the plus side, I did notice several of the family trees on the list updating within days using the information I sent out. This encouraged me to contact them again asking for information on family members that were still living, but no answer followed. With this, the family part of my search for Anna’s photo seemed to be over as well.
I woke up around 4 a.m. the following morning in the snow-covered Smokey Mountains, fired up my computer by the fireplace, pulled out all of Frank Bartleman’s books and the available Methodist archives and began mapping Anna’s journey around the globe. Still well before the crack of dawn, I had discovered J. S. Ladd’s obituary with Anna mentioned by her Bulgarian-birth name, Slavka Tanasova (misspelled by the printer due to Ladd’s handwriting as Slarka Lanasova), her listing as Annie Ladd in the ship’s manifest upon their arrival as family to the United States in 1890 and the address where they first resided in Brooklyn, New York. Not only did I not find the long-searched photo, but now I had managed to lose track of Anna for almost a decade between 1890 and 1899 when she became the matron of Christian home for girls in Pittsburgh, PA.
For the rest of the day, in hope to find a picture of Anna, I emailed various historical societies and proceeded to examined the census records of the Ladd family. This attempt followed the path of the churches pastored by J. S. Ladd, at Dover Plaines (1893), Ancram, NY (1894-98), East Chatham (1899-1903), Putnam Valley (1904-08), Patterson (1909-11) and Johnsville, NY (1912) up to his death in 1922. The Putnam Valley, Patterson, Ancram and the rest of the historical societies all the way to Correy, PA where Frank and Anna Bartleman were married and first pastored, had no photo of the Bartlemans or the Ladds. This was quite a surprise given the significance of their ministry, and in the case Rev. J. S. Ladd’s notorious business entrepreneurship in each community where they resided to the point of designing a trolley line in upstate New York. But Anna was once again nowhere to be found except in one single reference given by the town historian of Ancram via the Old Fulton New York archive. The local Columbian Republican posted on September 19, 1922 that,
Mrs. Clara Porter received a card from Mrs. Annie Ladd Bartleman, of Los Angeles, Cal., saying her mother, Mrs Ladd passed away in June at her home in Spring Arbor, (Michigan). Mr. Ladd her husband, was a former pastor in the M. E. here [Ancram, NY].
No census records showed Anna living with the Ladds after arriving to America. They did show, however, that upon his passing in 1922 Rev. J. S. Ladd left to his wife Rosa-Celia quite a large realty inheritance. It was obvious from all census and newspaper articles covering local properties, however, that as the only, though adopted child, Anna was not listed among the beneficiaries of any of the family properties. With this information, it was becoming clearer why a photo from her early years may have not been preserved.
Meanwhile, the general Methodist Archive at Drew University also responded to one of my requests. Though limited to some 50 pages in all, their records on J. S. Ladd contained his handwritten correspondence with the Methodist Mission Board in America. The letters were primarily regarding financial support of the mission station and adjunct schools, but they did contain an interesting reference written by Rev. Ladd in 1889 while requesting to return to America after seven years in the field. All expenses for the leave were to be paid by the undersigned on behalf of his “Wife & little girl.” Though the name of the “little girl” was not explicitly mentioned and neither was of his wife, it was well understood this to be their only (adopted) child Anna.
Indeed, Anna arrived with the Ladds to America in 1890, but even my most persistent attempt could not discover anything about her following upbringing or education in America until 1899 when Frank Bartleman met her as a Christian worker at the Hope Mission in Pittsburgh, PA. Their following assignment to the mission’s branch in McKees Rocks, PA where Frank proposed in marriage, was not coincidental. The growing Russian immigrant community at McKees Rocks was well established with vibrant spiritual life and an Eastern Orthodox church of their own. Anna’s Slavic origin would have given her advantage in communicating and ministering in such immigrant community. Unfortunately, in all numerous archives from the time period, the McKees Rocks historical society had no record of Anna, Frank or even a local branch of the Hope Mission.
Following the next step in Anna’s journey led to Corry, PA proposing an important starting point for the young Bartleman family. Frank’s own record of the story included marriage, pastorship, family ties amid his experience with the early holiness movement, the exact location of the wedding, name of the local Methodist conference superintendent who met Frank at the train station and later performed the wedding and signed their marriage license. It also contained the peculiar detail that Frank travelled to Corry alone to receive the pastoral appointment and apply for marriage license until Anna arrived a few days later. But apart from the marriage license docket in the city archive, nothing in the records of Corry Area Historical Society, First Methodist Church or the United Methodist Church in town pointed to Bartleman’s year-long ministry there or the much sought after family photo with Anna. It was only by the process of elimination that became clear, which was the church they pastored and where they were married.
The following stops in Bartleman’s journey West toward California did not reveal a family photo, though at least one was in existence with firstborn daughter Esther in it. All known group pictures from the Alma White’s Pillar of Fire, Pasadena’s Peniel Mission and early Azusa meetings had no photo identifying Anna Ladd-Bartleman either. Same was the result from my inquiry to B. Martin who extensively researched one of Frank’s close coworkers and travel companions, Edward J. Boehmer. With the same success, I consecutively followed the stops in their multiple home-mission journeys until 1912.
Finally, the examination of early Pentecostal sources through Europe was to be consulted. I focused predominantly on the places where Anna and the children stayed for a longer period of time while Frank travelled and preached. Among them Halifax in England, Bremen and Bunde in Germany, Orebro in Sweden, Gaufiin in Finland and several more all the way to Sister Carnell’s Pentecostal Home in London and Glad Tidings in New York, which were the two final stops of Bartlemans’ world missions’ journey before returning home. A picture of Anna-Ladd Bartleman was nowhere to be found.
With months of research under my belt, I had managed to compile sufficient information on Anna Ladd-Bartleman not just for this current paper, but also for another one on early Pentecostal women in Bulgaria for SPS, encyclopedia article for Brill and a chapter in my upcoming book on the first centennial anniversary of Bulgarian Pentecostalism, Unforgotten. But with all this, I was still missing her photo, which inspired the following appeal in place of an epilogue:
If you are reading this and you have a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman, please feel free to contact me directly [Editor’s note: we are glad to connect readers with authors when we can]. Do the same if you would like to inquire if I have already found one past the completion of this paper. I will be more than happy to send you a copy. For if we really want to rediscover the vision, redefine the role and hear again the voice of our women of Pentecost in this digital era, we can start by finding a picture…
The Unforgotten: Historical and Theological Roots of Pentecostalism in Bulgaria
Hardcover – May 10, 2021
This book tells the story of four early Pentecostal families who brought the message of Azusa to Bulgaria, Eastern Europe and Russia. The research has taken over a decade to complete. It started with a brief article on the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, where unfortunately many church archives were destroyed during Communism. Consecutively, the research led my wife and I on a long journey from the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, Pusey Library at Harvard, the British and Foreign Bible Society in Cambridge, and countless Bulgarian churches. We are grateful to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center for making readily available their denominational archives. Dr. Albert Wardin graciously opened the door for research in Nashville and Berkeley, where most documentation of Voronaev’s early ministry are preserved. Dr. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. of Fuller provided tremendous guidance to the life and ministry of Frank and Anna Bartleman through virtually every step of their journey and every address they occupied. We are also thankful to Dr. Oleg Bornovolokov of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kiev, who helped with various KGB/FSB documents and the NKVD dossiers from Gulag. The papers included in this book were presented at Society for Pentecostal Studies meetings between 2010 and 2021. The first part of the book appeared in vol. 30 (2010) of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine and their December, 2010 editorial. The Bulgarian Pentecostal Union published our translation and commentary of Voronaev’s correspondence in their monthly Evangel. In 2011, Dr. Vladimir Franchuk, translated our Voronaev’s papers in Russian and included them in his book Revival: from the center of Odessa to the ends of Russia just in time for the 90th anniversary of Pentecostalism in Russia. Most of the historiographical data presented in this book is being published openly for the first time.
Category: Church History, Winter 2025
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