Sigourney Trask
Sigourney Trask (June 14, 1849 - ?) was an American physician and missionary. She is remembered as being the first woman physician at Foochow, China sent by the Methodist Episcopal Church missionaries.
Biography
Trask was born June 14, 1849, in Youngsville, Pennsylvania. Her mother died while Trask was young, and thereafter, she was raised by her paternal grandparents, who also resided in Youngsville. At the age of 14, she joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. She graduated at the Pittsburg Female College (now Chatham University), and then at the Elizabeth Blackwell Woman's Medical College of New York City.[1][2]
In 1874, Trask received her appointment to Foochow. In January, 1875, the mission asked for US$5,000 to build a hospital and residence for Trask, which was appropriated by the General Executive Committee the following May. At the close of the second year, Trask reported the number of patients registered as 1,208. After six years, she made a visit to the US in 1880 for a few months, and then returned to China. January 6, 1885, she was married in Foochow to John Phelps Cowles, Jr.[3]
References
This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: F. J. Baker's The story of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869-1895 (1898)- This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: M. S. Wheeler's First Decade of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church: With Sketches of Its Missionaries (1881)
- ↑ Wheeler 1881, p. 168.
- ↑ Zaccarini 2001, p. 63.
- ↑ Baker 1898, p. 155.
Bibliography
- Baker, Frances J. (1898). The story of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869-1895. Curts & Jennings.
- Wheeler, Mary Sparkes (1881). First Decade of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church: With Sketches of Its Missionaries (Public domain ed.). Phillips & Hunt.
- Zaccarini, Maria Cristina (2001). The Sino-American Friendship as Tradition and Challenge: Dr. Ailie Gale in China, 1908-1950. Lehigh University Press. ISBN 978-0-934223-70-6.