Eleanor Chesnut

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.[1]

Eleanor Chesnut, from a 1906 publication.
Eleanor Chesnut, from a 1906 publication.
Eleanor Chesnut's signature, from a 1905 publication.

Early life

Eleanor "Nell" E. Chesnut was born in Waterloo, Iowa.[2] 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.[3] She attended Park College, a Presbyterian school in Missouri.[4] 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.[5][6]

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.[7] She worked in Lianzhou,[8] where she ran a women's hospital, traveled by horseback to hold clinics in small villages,[9] and trained local women as nurses.[2][10] 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.[11] 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."[5]

During a furlough in the United States from 1902 to 1903,[12] Chesnut gave lectures[13] 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.[14] 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.[15][16]

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.[5][17] Her story was presented (and continues to be presented)[18][19] as an example of Christian sacrifice in church educational materials.[20]

References
  1. Guangqiu Xu (2017). American Doctors in Canton: Modernization in China, 1835-1935. Taylor & Francis. p. 32.
  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.com
  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.com
  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.com
  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.
  16. Arthur J. Brown, "The Story of Lien-chou Martyrdom" The Missionary Review of the World (February 1906): 87-94.
  17. "A memorial to the Martyrs of Lien-Chou, China" Woman's Work (August 1907): 175-176.
  18. Susan Verstraete, "'With Skilled Kind Fingers that Did Not Tremble': The Story of Dr. Eleanor Chesnut" Bulletin Inserts (Christian Communicators Worldwide 2012).
  19. G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber, A Year with American Saints (Church Publishing Inc. 2006): 32-34. ISBN 9780898697988
  20. 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.
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