Mary Reed (missionary)

Last updated • 9 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Mary Reed
Mary Reed (Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers, 1900).png
Reed in 1900
Personal life
Born1854
Died1943 (aged 8889)
Chandag, India
Signature Mary Reed signature (Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers, 1899).png
Religious life
Denomination Methodist Episcopal Church
Professionmissionary to lepers
Senior posting
PostIndia

Mary Reed (1854–1943) was an American Christian missionary to India. For the first ten years of her career, she worked as a school teacher in her home state of Ohio. In 1884, she went to India as a missionary of the Cincinnati Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and entered upon zenana missions work at Cawnpore. In 1890, she became conscious of a strange physical disability, and thinking that her health was failing, returned to the U.S. on a furlough. While recovering in Cincinnati came the dread suspicion and subsequent discovery that the malady was leprosy. At first, she was overwhelmed with the realization, but she quickly decided to give her life to work among the lepers in India, and her thoughts turned to Pithoragarh, among the foothills of the Himalayas, at the base of Chandag Heights, where a group of lepers lived in whom she had already become interested. Her suspicions as to the nature of her disease were confirmed by every specialist she consulted. She kept the diagnosis a secret, however, from her family, with the exception of one sister, and returned to India in 1891. Proceeding to Pithoragarh, Reed informed her family and friends by letter of her purpose, and her reason for choosing this service. Thereafter, she conducted her important work at Chandag, and built up an institution which in many respects was a model of order and well-arranged facilities. Reed continued to work among the lepers of India until her death in 1943. [1] She was a recipient of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal.

Contents

Early life

Mary Reed was born in Lowell, Ohio, in 1854. [2] [3] [a] [b] She was the first daughter in a family of four brothers and four sisters. [2]

At 16, she became a Christian. [6]

Career

Public school teacher

At the age of 18, she became a public school teacher, and taught for 10 years in Ohio. [6]

She often felt a desire to enter the foreign mission field, but considered herself too unworthy and inefficient. Eventually, she shed the doubts, obtained the consent of her parents, resigned her position as teacher, and offered herself to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. [6] Reed was moved by some compelling claim to give her life to India. She had heard of the narrow lives women were forced to live, confined within zenanas, with little or no occupation to relieve their monotonous days. Their condition of arrested growth, deprived of athletic development, awakened a responsive interest in the mind of Reed, as she taught boys and girls in the public schools in Ohio. [7]

Zenanas

She reached India in 1884. At the Society's North India Conference in January, 1885, Reed was allocated to Cawnpore, Uttar Pradesh on the Ganges, [7] [4] for work in the zenanas of the city. [2]

Pithoragarh The meeting of heaven and earth.jpg
Pithoragarh

At this juncture, her health gave way, and a period of rest and change became necessary. Pithoragarh, in the bracing climate of the Himalayas, was selected for the purpose. Here she spent a few weeks of preparation for the work then awaiting her. In addition to study of the language, and observation of missionary work being carried on in the neighbourhood, [2] she had an opportunity of seeing the spot in which was to be erected an asylum for lepers, and she learned of their sufferings. With restored health, she gladly returned to Cawnpore to enter upon the work to which she had been appointed, remaining for four years. [6] [4] [7] [2]

Girls' Boarding School teacher

From Cawnpore she was transferred to Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, where for 12 months, she taught in the Girls' Boarding School. By this time, her health was seriously undermined, and in January, 1890, she returned to the U.S. in search of renewed strength for further service. [2] [6] [4] [7]

Furlough

In Cincinnati, she underwent a lengthy course of treatment, including at least one operation, but without the hoped-for restoration. Amongst the symptoms, which for some time completely baffled her physicians, were a constant tingling pain in the fore-finger of the right hand, and later, a strange spot on one cheek, near the ear. [2]

After searching such medical books as she could lay her hands upon, she confided her suspicions to her physician and to one friend (the Cincinnati secretary of her Society). Her fears that it was leprosy were confirmed by her doctor, but as his knowledge of the disease was purely theoretical, he transferred his patient to New York City as soon as Reed was fit for the journey. In New York, she was examined by a specialist who had studied the disease in the Sandwich Islands. His verdict confirmed her own suspicion that she had fallen a victim to leprosy. [2] [7]

Desiring to spare her family the pain the knowledge must have brought to them, she kept them, with the single exception of her sister Rena, in ignorance of the diagnosis. [2] Reed insisted on returning to India. [6] [4] [7]

On her return trip, Reed left New York, crossing the Atlantic in the same steamer which carried the Epworth League pilgrims to England in 1891. She arrived in London with her letters of introduction to two eminent specialists, who both confirmed the decision of the American physician. [2]

In London, Reed met a young woman school-teacher from New England, whose companionship she greatly enjoyed, and with whom she traveled in Europe, though Paris, as far as Lake Lucerne. [6]

Work with lepers

In September 1891, a Scottish organization, the Mission to Lepers in India and the East, was approached on behalf of Reed, with a view to finding her a sphere of service among her fellow patients. This Mission carried on work among lepers in 34 centers in India, Burma, Ceylon, and China, establishing and maintaining leper asylums. [6] A letter from Bishop James Mills Thoburn, the Superintendent in India of the Methodist Episcopal Church, first informed the committee of this new worker, but whose name was, for the time being, withheld. In writing to propose that Reed be appointed Superintendent of the Asylum at Pithoragarh, Bishop Thoburn said:

"It is a hard thing to say, and yet it does look as if Providence was sending her to a very needy people who otherwise could receive no help. The district in which Pithoragarh is located, that is, Eastern Kumaun, has more lepers in proportion to its population than any other district in India; at least, so the census indicates. It is a mystery how she ever contracted the disease. She accepts her fate, and feels that she is set apart for the poor creatures who are similarly afflicted in Eastern Kumaun.

Shortly after this, the U.S. newspapers made Reed's name public, together with such particulars as could be collected or invented. A deep impression was created on the mind of the public, eliciting much sympathy. [2]

In the meantime, while waiting the decision of the committee, Reed found a welcome resting place at Pithora with Miss A. M. Budden, who, together with her sister and preceded by their devoted father, had done faithful service among the women, the children, and the lepers of that district. [2]

The committee decision came: they were glad to be able to act on the recommendations of Thoburn and Budden, and to appoint Reed to the superintendence of their Asylum for Lepers at Chandag. [2]

From Bombay, Reed wrote to her sister:— "I shall have the joy of ministering to a class of people, who, but for the preparation which has been mine for this special task, would have no helper at all." Her mother was not told of her condition until Reed reached India. [6] [4] [7]

Reed climbed 6,400 feet (2,000 m) above sea level, up to Chandag Heights in the Himalayas, where her bungalow was being built, to meet, for the first time, the men, women, and children who were to be her future charge. The disabled people assembled while she told them briefly of the circumstances that brought her to them. At the time, the lepers were housed in huts and stables and other quarters inadequate for their comfort. Reed's first move was to secure proper accommodation for the people. [7]

Reed's home, Chandag Heights, India Home of Mary Reed, Chandag Heights, India (Christian missions and social progress, 1897).png
Reed's home, Chandag Heights, India

Reed purchased additional land, and in the course of time, built two good sized structures, accommodating 60 men and boys, three smaller ones for women and children, an isolation hospital for extreme cases with a dispensary attached. There were four other buildings, one of which was the little bungalow fitted up for Reed's occupancy, [6] which she named "Sunny Crest Cottage". [8] [7] A stone-wall, 3 feet (0.91 m) high enclosed the property which 66 acres (27 ha). [7]

She explored the mountains for a water supply, and in an out-of-the-way place discovered a spring of clear water, which skilled engineers connected with the asylum. With flower seed sent from the U.S. she filled the mountainside with blossoms. A vegetable garden and small chicken yard helped the food supply, which was always uncertain in this famine zone of the world. Reed was housekeeper, head nurse, chaplain, secretary and bookkeeper, all in one. With several native assistants, she looked after the diet and simple medical treatment of her patients, taught them to read and held religious services, prayer groups and Bible classes among them. In five years' time, 67 out of 85 converted Christianity. [7]

In addition to the work among the lepers, at one time, Reed was district missionary for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and supervised six village schools and three Sunday Schools, directed a group of Bible women and taught pupils in their homes. Riding or walking, she covered a circumference of 40 miles (64 km). [7]

Personal life

Mary Reed Mary Reed (Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers, 1899).png
Mary Reed

While working diligently among the lepers, Reed received treatment herself. [4]

Early in 1892, a missionary wrote that Reed suffered constantly and was highly sensitive. For the first six months after Reed's arrival at Pithora, the disease made rapid progress, and she suffered intense pain most of the time. In September, 1893, she wrote:— "My good health is a marvel to all." On July 11, 1896, she wrote:— "As for my health, it is simply marvelous." Then, in August, she wrote again: "I could not tie myself down to my writing-desk this morning till I first sat down at my organ and played and sang." [6] Outward traces of the disease disappeared so completely that physicians pronounced her practically cured, although she herself was at times conscious of its presence in her system. For thirty years, she worked from 12 to 14 hours a day, and in the year 1920, was told by her friends that she never looked so well in her life. [7]

By 1899, Reed's health was noted to be quite improved. [3] By many, it was thought that the physicians were mistaken in pronouncing the disease leprosy, but that it must have been an aggravated form of an eczema, which was prevalent in India. [6] However, the leprosy returned in 1932. [3]

Death and legacy

Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers (IA cu31924090985247).pdf
Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers

In 1900, Reed's biography was published by the missionary, John Jackson (1853–1917), [2] a secretary of the (Edinburgh) "Mission to Lepers". [9]

Mary Reed died in Chandag, India, in 1943, [3] sometime before May 27. [10]

Awards and honors

Notes

  1. According to Logan (1912), Reed was born in Crooked Tree, Ohio. [4]
  2. Dennis (1897) records her year of birth as 1857, [1] while the International Leprosy Association records her year of birth as 1858. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leprosy</span> Chronic disease caused by infection of two mycobacterial species

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damage may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, which can lead to the loss of parts of a person's extremities from repeated injuries or infection through unnoticed wounds. An infected person may also experience muscle weakness and poor eyesight. Leprosy symptoms may begin within one year, but, for some people, symptoms may take 20 years or more to occur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Father Damien</span> Belgian Roman Catholic priest and saint (1840–1889)

Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai or Saint Damien De Veuster, born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to people with leprosy, who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leper colony</span> Place to isolate people with leprosy

A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaisar-i-Hind Medal</span> Award

The Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India was a medal awarded by the Emperor/Empress of India between 1900 and 1947, to "any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself by important and useful service in the advancement of the public interest in India."

Leprosy stigma is a type of social stigma, a strong negative feeling towards a person with leprosy relating to their moral status in society. It is also referred to as leprosy-related stigma, leprostigma, and stigma of leprosy. Since ancient times, leprosy instilled the practice of fear and avoidance in many societies because of the associated physical disfigurement and lack of understanding behind its cause. Because of the historical trauma the word leprosy invokes, the disease is now referred to as Hansen's disease, named after Gerhard Armauer Hansen who discovered Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterial agent that causes Hansen's disease. Those who have suffered from Hansen's disease describe the impact of social stigma as far worse than the physical manifestations despite it being only mildly contagious and pharmacologically curable. This sentiment is echoed by Weis and Ramakrishna, who noted that "the impact of the meaning of the disease may be a greater source of suffering than symptoms of the disease".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Cornwall Legh</span> British missionary

Mary Helena Cornwall Legh, also known as was a British Anglican missionary, who late in life devoted herself to the welfare, education and medical care of leprosy patients in Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, Japan.

Wellesley C. Bailey (1846-1937) was the founder of the international charity The Leprosy Mission. In India, in the 1860s, he witnessed the severe consequences of the disease and vowed to make caring for those struggling with leprosy his life's work. The Mission is still active today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of leprosy</span>

The history of leprosy was traced to its origins by an international team of 22 geneticists using comparative genomics of the worldwide distribution of Mycobacterium leprae. Monot et al. (2005) determined that leprosy originated in East Africa or the Near East and traveled with humans along their migration routes, including those of trade in goods and slaves. The four strains of M. leprae are based in specific geographic regions where each predominantly occurs:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Watney</span>

Katherine Watney was a British-born missionary nurse in China.

Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands was an American Christian mission organization. Established in 1861, its headquarters were at 41 Bible House, Astor Place, New York City. The first meeting called to consider organizing a society was gathered in a private parlor in New York City on January 9, 1861, and addressed by a returned missionary from Burma. At a subsequent meeting on January 10, the organization was effected, with Sarah Platt Doremus as president. The society's object was to "send out and maintain single women as Bible-readers and teachers, and to raise up native female laborers in heathen lands".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Wall</span> American Christian medical missionary, philosopher, nurse, and author

Martha Alma Wall was an American Christian medical missionary, philosopher, nurse, and author who is best known for her humanitarian work providing health care to lepers in British Nigeria during the 1930s and 1940s with the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). She was born in Hillsboro, Kansas to a traditional Christian family and was a devout member of both the non-denominational Salina Bible Church and the Baptist Women's Union. She became a registered nurse and studied theology at Tabor College before leaving for a medical mission in British Nigeria in 1938. After returning to America, Wall worked as a Clinical Supervisor of Vocational Nurses for Kern General Hospital during the 1950s and as an instructor and director of nursing services for Bakersfield College during the 1960s. Throughout her adult life, she was a dedicated member of the California State Licensed Vocational Nurses Association. Wall is noted as the founder of the Children's Welfare Center at the Katsina Leper Settlement. She documented her missionary work in Sub-Saharan Africa in the book she authored Splinters from an African Log, which was published in 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Amelia Ewing</span> American educator, missionary, philanthropist, activist, social reformer (1822–1897)

Catherine Amelia Ewing was an American educator, missionary, philanthropist, activist, and social reformer from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. In 1857, she took in children from the Washington County Infirmary, thus organizing the first children's home in the state of Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church</span>

Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was one of three Methodist organizations in the United States focused on women's foreign missionary services; the two others were the WFMS of the Free Methodist Church of North America and the WFMS of the Methodist Protestant Church.

Nora Neve (1873-1952) was a British nurse and medical missionary with the Church Missionary Society who pioneered missionary nursing. Her work was instrumental in the development of the Kashmir Mission Hospital in Srinagar. She was the hospital's first Superintendent of Nursing and led education and cleanliness initiatives. Neve also recorded and published records of Kashmiri hospital practices in the American Journal of Nursing, contributing to the tool kits of other missionaries and preserving a part of Kashmir's cultural history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriette G. Brittan</span> British-born American missionary

Harriette G. Brittan was a pioneer British-born American missionary to Liberia, India and Japan. Finding herself unable to live in Africa because of repeated attacks of tropical fever, she was compelled to return to the United States. A year or two later, she went to India where she labored for twenty years. In 1880, she came to Japan and founded Brittan Girls’ School, later known as Yokohama Eiwa Gakuin. At the age of sixty-three, she gave up regular mission work and for a number of years, conducted a boarding house. When her health started to fail, she returned to the U.S. and died one day after reaching San Francisco.

Lucilla Green Cheney, M.D. was an American physician and Christian missionary. Beginning in 1876, she served a medical mission in Bareilly, British India under the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She died of cholera two years into her mission.

Edward George Horder was an English medical missionary to China notable for his work with leprosy patients. As a member of the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), Horder spent 25 years in the city of Pakhoi–now Beihai–building and operating the first mission hospital in the Guangdong province. In addition to becoming the second-largest C.M.S. mission hospital in China, Horder's Pakhoi mission station was the first institution in the region to treat leprosy patients. Even after Horder's departure, the hospital remained a health center in Beihai and was the site of service for a generation of new missionaries. Although the leper wing closed in 1936, the hospital itself still survives as the Beihai People Hospital.

Mary Ella Berry was a medical missionary in the 1900s, who helped develop the Jorhat leprosy colony and the Gauhati Women's Hospital in Assam, India, also known as the Jubilee Hospital, which became the Satribari Christian Hospital in Assam. She served as director of the Satribari Hospital from 1945 to 1952. Most of her work was in treating leprosy. As the child of two Baptist medical missionaries who founded a leprosy colony in Jorhat, India, She spent her early life and education between India and the United States. She directed the Jorhat Leprosy program at Jorhat Mission Hospital from 1952-1957.

Kate Allenby was an Australian missionary who primarily worked in India. She worked in the Queensland Baptist Missionary Society and founded the Mayurbhanj Mission later moved to Baripada. During her mission, she spread Christianity and education to many of the villages and tribes in India directing her work towards creating safe spaces for Women and Children. In India, she built multiple schools, an orphanage, and an asylum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Lore McGrew</span> Argentine-born American physician; medical missionary (1849–1942)

Julia Lore McGrew (1849–1942) was an American physician and medical missionary in India. Affiliated with the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, she was, in 1876, the first to provide medical missionary services in Moradabad.

References

  1. 1 2 Dennis, James S. (James Shepard) (1897). Christian missions and social progress; a sociological study of foreign missions. New York, F. H. Revell. Retrieved 30 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Jackson, John. "Mary Reed, missionary to the lepers". New York, Chicago, [etc.] Fleming H. Revell company. Retrieved 29 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Reed, Mary (1854–1943)". www.bu.edu. History of Missiology, Boston University. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Logan, Mrs John A. (1912). "MARY REED". The Part Taken by Women in American History. Perry-Nalle publishing Company. p. 515. Retrieved 29 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  5. 1 2 "Mary Reed". leprosyhistory.org. International Leprosy Association – History of Leprosy. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "OUR BENEVOLENCES. MARY REED". The Western Christian Advocate. 64. C. Holliday and J.F. Wright: 203–04. February 17, 1897. Retrieved 29 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Sease, Rosalyn Summer (1921). "GIRL WHO CONSECRETATED HER HANDICAP (MARY REED) (MISSIONARY)". Luther League Review. 34. Luther League of America: 26–27. Retrieved 29 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  8. "1854–1943 Mary Reed". gfamissions.org. Gospel Fellowship Association Missions. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  9. "Books Received". Woman's Work for Woman. 15. Woman's Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian Church: 53. February 1900. Retrieved 29 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  10. "Dave Boone Says". News-Journal. Mansfield, Ohio. 27 May 1943. p. 10. Retrieved 30 May 2022 via Newspapers.com.

Further reading