Edwin St. John Ward (1880-1951) graduated from Amherst College in 1900. He received his medical degree from Columbia University in 1904. From 1907 through 1911 he was a medical missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Turkey. He was a professor of surgery at the American University in Beirut from 1911-1931, where he served as the acting Dean of the Medical Department from 1920-1921 and as Dean of Medical Faculty from 1924-1931. Dr. Ward was also a member of the American Red Cross Service in Palestine and Turkey from 1915-1916, in France in 1917 and Palestine from 1918-1919. After completing his work abroad, he returned to the United States where he worked as a physician and surgeon in various hospitals in Massachusetts.

In 1907, he married Charlotte Edwards Allen. Together they had six children. Two sons Paul L. Ward (A.C. 1935) and Richard Storer Ward (A.C. 1942) are graduates of Amherst College. Dr. Ward's brother's Mark Ward and William Earl Dodge Ward are both members of the class of 1906.