Misplaced Pages

Eleanor Chesnut

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
American medical missionary (1868–1905)
Eleanor Chesnut, from a 1906 publication.
Eleanor Chesnut, from a 1906 publication.
Eleanor Chesnut's signature, from a 1905 publication.

Eleanor Chesnut (January 8, 1868 — October 29, 1905), sometimes written as Eleanor Chestnut, was an American Christian medical missionary and translator who worked in China from 1894 until her murder in 1905.

Early life

Eleanor "Nell" E. Chesnut was born in Waterloo, Iowa. She was a twin, and her mother died soon after her birth; she was raised by neighbors named Merwin, and later by relatives in Hatton, Missouri. She attended Park College, a Presbyterian school in Missouri. She graduated from the college in 1888, and attended Women's Medical College, the Illinois Training School for Nurses, and Moody Bible Institute, in her preparation for becoming a medical missionary.

Mission work in China

A building of the former mission hospitals still stands in Lianzhou.

Eleanor Chesnut worked briefly as a physician at the women's reformatory in Framingham, Massachusetts. She sailed from San Francisco for China as a missionary in 1894. She worked in Lianzhou, where she ran a women's hospital, traveled by horseback to hold clinics in small villages, and trained local women as nurses. She advocated for the building of schools and public health measures. She also translated books into the Lianzhou dialect, including the Gospel of Matthew and a nursing textbook. In a letter, she wrote, "I don't think we are in any danger, but if we are, we might as well die suddenly in God's work as by some long-drawn-out illness at home."

During a furlough in the United States from 1902 to 1903, Chesnut gave lectures and raised funds for her work. "I do not feel that I am spiritual enough to be a missionary," she told a friend during this visit. In October 1905, she and three other Americans, and one child, were killed by a mob stirred to violence by her removal of a ceremonial structure.

Memorials

In 1907, a brass plaque naming Chesnut as one of the five "Missionary Martyrs" was installed at the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board headquarters in New York City. Her story was presented (and continues to be presented) as an example of Christian sacrifice in church educational materials.

References

  1. Guangqiu Xu (2017). American Doctors in Canton: Modernization in China, 1835-1935. Taylor & Francis. p. 32. ISBN 9781351532778.
  2. ^ James Stuart Dickson, "Where Our Graduates Go" The Assembly Herald (April 1906): 204-205.
  3. "Iowa Girl in China" The Courier (June 20, 1900): 1. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  4. "The Roll Call of the Martyrs" New York Observer and Chronicle (November 9, 1905): 605. via ProQuest
  5. ^ Robert Elliott Speer, Servants of the King (Board of Foreign Missions 1909): 91-113.
  6. John F. Piper, Robert E. Speer: Prophet of the American Church (Geneva Press 2000): 231-232. ISBN 9780664501327
  7. "Chicago Woman Slain in China" Inter Ocean (November 2, 1905): 3. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  8. Guangqiu Xu, American Doctors in Canton: Modernization in China, 1835-1935 (Routledge 2017). ISBN 9781351532778
  9. G. Thompson Brown, "Eleanor Chestnut" Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (online edition).
  10. Roxann Prazniak, Of Camel Kings and Other Things: Rural Rebels Against Modernity in Late Imperial China (Rowman & Littlefield 1999): 181. ISBN 9780847690077
  11. Nina D. Gage, "Stages of Nursing in China" American Journal of Nursing (November 1919): 119.
  12. "Back after First Furlough" Woman's Work for Woman (January 1904): 39-40.
  13. "A Coming Lecture" Altoona Tribune (October 8, 1902): 4. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  14. E. S. Strong, "Our Martyred Dead" The Institute Tie (April 1906): 257-258.
  15. Guangqiu Xu (2017). American Doctors in Canton: Modernization in China, 1835-1935. Taylor & Francis. p. 32. ISBN 9781351532778.
  16. Arthur J. Brown, "The Story of Lien-chou Martyrdom" The Missionary Review of the World (February 1906): 87-94.
  17. 張璐 (2021). 晚清與教案：從晚清廣東省連州教案探究清教案發生原因 (PDF). Education University of Hong Kong (Thesis).
  18. "A memorial to the Martyrs of Lien-Chou, China" Woman's Work (August 1907): 175-176.
  19. Susan Verstraete, "'With Skilled Kind Fingers that Did Not Tremble': The Story of Dr. Eleanor Chesnut" Bulletin Inserts (Christian Communicators Worldwide 2012).
  20. G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber, A Year with American Saints (Church Publishing Inc. 2006): 32-34. ISBN 9780898697988
  21. Helen Barrett Montgomery, Western Women in Eastern Lands: An Outline Study of Fifty Years of Woman's Work in Foreign Missions (Macmillan 1910): 196-200.

External links

Categories: