Page 268 →Page 269 →Index of Names

America

Frey’s Family

John Frey (1831–1900), Lulu Frey’s father, served in the Civil War and had several occupations while he moved his family first from Sidney, Ohio, to North Carolina and finally back to Bellefontaine, Ohio. He was a Methodist and Frey become a Methodist after attending a revival at his church. The Bellefontaine Republican dated August 28, 1900, reports that Captain John Frey of the 9th Ohio Cavalry Regiment died of a heart attack at home on August 25, 1900.

Emma Kelsey Frey (1839–1913), Lulu Frey’s mother, was born in Sidney, Ohio, where most of her family continued to live. The Kelseys were Presbyterians and seem to have been better off than the Freys. The letters mention a legal dispute between Emma Kelsey Frey and her half sister Anna Kelsey Sterline regarding their father’s will. Emily Frey was a Latin teacher at the high school in Bellefontaine. She received a pension after the death of her husband.

Georgia Kelsey Frey (m. Lesourd) (1882–1954), Lulu Frey’s younger sister, was only a child of 11 when Frey first left home to go to Korea. Georgia became a teacher at 18 and was able to help her mother financially after the death of her father in 1900. She married Homer Williamson LeSourd on July 12, 1905.

Homer Williamson Lesourd (1875–1948), Georgia’s husband. A native of Bellefontaine, Homer was a physics teacher at Milton Academy after graduating from Harvard with a master’s degree in 1901.

Myra Fuller Lesourd (m. Bradley), Georgia’s daughter, and Frey’s niece, born May 13, 1909. She gifted Frey’s letters to Ewha in 1970.

Nettie M. Frey (m. Dickinson) (1862–95), Frey’s older sister, suffered from severe consumption and died early.

Frank P. Dickinson (1858–1928), Nettie’s husband, a farmer who seems to have been in difficult financial circumstances.

Page 270 →Martha Belle Dickinson (1887–1973) oldest daughter of Nettie and Frank Dickinson. She might have been sent to her relatives during her mother’s illness and there was talk that she might be adopted by Aunt Anna after her mother’s death.

Grant Frey Dickinson (1889–1924), Nettie’s son.

Helen K. Dickinson (1890–1975), Nettie’s youngest child.

Grant Frey (1864–99), Lulu Frey’s older brother who traveled the world. Grant died in New York in January 1899.

Anna Kelsey Sterline (1851–1901), referred to as Aunt Anna and Aunt Ann, was a half sister of Emma Kelsey Frey, and the two would later be involved in some kind of family lawsuit regarding their father’s will after the death of his second wife, mother of Anna, Mary Abbott Kelsey (1819–95).

Webster “Web” Kelsey Sterline (1878–1983), Aunt Anna’s son and Frey’s cousin.

Friends and Acquaintances

Mr. Josiah L. Albritton (1847–1931), pastor of the Bellefontaine Methodist Episcopal Church. Frey first confided in Albritton about her calling to be a missionary.

Belle J. Allen (1862–1946), WFMS, deployed to Japan in 1888. Native of Bellefontaine, Ohio, and graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, Allen was a neighborhood friend of Frey’s. She received a medical education after recovering from severe injuries in a shipwreck off Yokohama in 1898 and served out the rest of her life as a medical missionary to India.

Mr. John Quincy Adams Campbell (1865–1905), owner and editor of the Bellefontaine Republican from 1865 to 1905, when the paper merged with the Logan County Index. Campbell was a staunch Republican and supporter of the temperance movement. His paper kept readers well informed with correspondents from around the country and abroad.

Mary E. Miller (m. Colton) (1867–1944), Lulu Frey’s closest friend, was married to wealthy businessperson of Bellefontaine, Joseph Colton, 20 years her senior, in 1893. She gave birth to a son, Edwin Miller Colton, in 1894.

Mr. Joseph Colton (1848–1916), Mary’s husband, a wealthy businessperson, was the owner of the largest flour milling company in Ohio.

Page 271 →Clarabel (Clara), sister of Lulu Frey’s best friend Mary Miller Colton.

Lena May Colton (1881–1950), best friend of Georgia Frey and daughter of Joseph Colton, whose second wife was Mary Miller, Frey’s closest friend.

Mary “Mame” Roilla Hillman (1870–1928), friend from Ohio Wesleyan who would come out to join the mission of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) in 1900. “Mame” seems to have been a familiar nickname for “Mary,” as she is always referred to thus in Frey’s letters.

Jessie (family name unknown) appears several times in the letters. She was an assistant to a seamstress in Bellefontaine, before setting up her own business in later years.

Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer (1849–1922), founder of the Chicago Training School for City, Home and Foreign Missions in 1885. It was her piece in the Heathen Woman’s Friend that first motivated Lulu Frey to become a missionary.

Laura Patterson (1867–1949) was a neighborhood friend who appeared frequently in the letters.

Etta Aline Snay (1877–1948), a high-school classmate often mentioned in Frey’s letters.

Korea

Missionaries and Other Westerners

James Edward Adams (1876–1929), Presbyterian Church, was inspired by his sister, Annie Adams Baird (1864–1916), who had married William M. Baird (1862–1931) to serve as missionary to Korea. Adams arrived in 1895, serving first in Busan, before moving to Daegu, where he served until 1922.

Dr. Horace Newton Allen (1858–1932), first Presbyterian missionary to arrive in Korea in 1884 as medical doctor to the American legation. King Gojong opened the first western hospital, Jejungwon, in 1885 on Allen’s counsel. Allen later gave up his missionary work to become an American diplomat at the US legation, serving as secretary in 1890 and minister from 1897–1905.

Alice Appenzeller (1885–1950), daughter of Henry and Ella Appenzeller, was the first Western child to be born in Korea. She became the sixth principal of Ewha Haktang in 1922.

Henry G. Appenzeller (1858–1902), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, and his wife Ella were the first Methodist missionaries to arrive in Korea in 1885 Page 272 →along with the Scrantons and the Presbyterian missionary Horace G. Underwood. Appenzeller founded the boys’ school Paichai Hakdang in Jeongdong across the street from Ewha in the year of his arrival. Appenzeller passed away on June 2, 1902, when the boat he was traveling on to go to Mokpo collided with another vessel and sank.

Victoria C. Arbuckle (1877–1921), one of only three single female Presbyterian missionaries in Korea at the time, she served in Korea from 1891–96.

Dr. Oliver R. Avison (1860–1956), Presbyterian medical missionary who came to Korea in 1893 at the urging of Horace Underwood. Avison attended the king and founded Severance Hospital in 1904 with donations from Louis Severance of New York.

Blanche Rose Bair, WFMS, sister of Anna Bair Chaffin, served in Korea from 1913–38. Bair served in the Cheonan area until she passed away of a brain tumor. Her inheritance was donated by her sister Anna to build the Cheonan Church.

Byron Pat Barnhart (1889–1942), came to Korea in 1916 to be in charge of the indoor gymnasium built by the YMCA and stayed until 1940. Barnhart was an avid sportsperson who introduced baseball, basketball, volleyball, and camping to Korea.

Stephen Ambrose Beck (1866–1941) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, arrived in Korea in 1899 to oversee the Trilingual Press established in 1888 within Paichai Hakdang. Beck served in Korea from 1899–1919.

Isabella Bird Bishop first published a book on Japan in 1887 before visiting Korea. Bird traveled throughout Korea with the assistance of missionaries and spent a year in Seoul before returning to Britain and publishing Korea and Her Neighbors in 1897.

Mary E. Brown (1871–1907), Presbyterian Church, North, arrived in Korea in 1903 and served as nurse under Dr. Avison at Jejungwon, the first modern Western hospital in Korea, established in 1885 by Dr. Horace N. Allen with the support of King Gojong.

Georgia “Brownie” Charlotte Brownlee (1876–1970), WFMS, was recruited by Frey when she was a senior at the Cincinnati Kindergarten Training School in 1913 to begin the first kindergarten in Korea at Ewha. Brownlee began her work in 1914 with 16 kindergarteners. She also founded the first kindergarten training school for teachers in the same year.

Page 273 →Annie J. Ellers Bunker (1860–1938), arrived in Korea along with Homer Hulbert and her future husband Dalziel A. Bunker in 1886. She was the first female medical missionary to arrive in Korea and worked at Jejungwon alongside Horace N. Allen. Ellers served as personal physician to the queen. She married Dalzell A. Bunker in 1887, the same year she opened a school for girls in Jeongdong that later became Chungshin Girls’ School. She became affiliated with the Methodist mission at the same time as did her husband in 1894.

Dalziel A. Bunker (1853–1932), Presbyterian missionary who along with Homer B. Hulbert was one of the first Americans deployed to teach at the Yugyeong Gongwon (Royal College), the first modern state school founded by King Gojong in 1886. When Yugyeong Gongwon was closed in 1894, he became a teacher at Paichai Hakdang and a missionary supported by the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Annie J. Ellers in 1887.

George M. Burdick (1878–1945), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, arrived in Korea in 1902 and served in the Suwon district until he was transferred to Gangwon Province in 1905.

dr. John Bernard Busteed (1869–1901), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, first came to Korea at the invitation of Dr. William Scranton in 1893 and worked with him at the hospital in Sangdong near the South Gate.

Elmer M. Cable (1875–1949), the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, arrived in Korea with his wife in 1899. Cable taught at Paichai Hakdang and served at the East Gate Church before being sent to Hwang-hae Province in 1901. He was ordained as minister in 1902.

mrs. Campbell: Probable reference to Josephine P. Campbell (1853–1920), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who had first served in China before serving in Korea from 1897–1920. Founder of Jonggyo Church (1900) and Baewha Girls’ School (1903).

Anna Bair Chaffin (1883–1977), WFMS, served in Korea from 1913–40 and from 1946–56. She first came as the wife of independent missionary Victor Duclos Chaffin (1881–1916) with her unmarried younger sister Blanche Rosa Bair (1888–1938), WFMS. When her husband passed away in 1916, Chaffin decided to remain in Korea as a WFMS missionary. She taught at the Union Methodist Woman’s Bible Training School and also at Ewha after returning to Korea in 1946.

Marie Elizabeth Church (1884–1972), WFMS, came to Korea in 1915 and served at Ewha for 25 years until advised to leave with other missionaries in Page 274 →1940. She became the first principal of Ewha Girls’ High School when the college was officially separated institutionally from the high school as Ewha Women’s Professional School in 1925.

Dr. Mary M. Cutler (1865–1948), WFMS, served as medical missionary for 42 years after her arrival in Korea in 1893. She began work with Dr. Rosetta Sherwood at Bogunyeogwan, the first Western hospital established for women in 1887 by WFMS. The hospital was located in Jeongdong next to the school. In March 1893, the Baldwin Dispensary at Dongdaemun (East Gate), the second medical facility to be operated by WFMS missionaries, also began taking in patients.

Charles Scott Deming (1876–1938), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, came to Korea in 1905, serving in the Incheon area as well as doing press work within Paichai Hakdang. He married Edith Cushing Adams Millard, the widow of a missionary to China in 1911, and returned to Korea with her and her three children. Mrs. Deming played an important role in the couple’s work in the Harbin region after 1929 until they retired due to poor health in 1937.

Margaret Jane Edmunds (1871–1945), WFMS, graduated from the University of Michigan Training School of Nurses in 1892 and served as a visiting nurse affiliated with the King’s Daughters Union, a women’s charity targeting inner-city poverty, when she heard a lecture by Dr. Cutler urgently seeking a head nurse for the WFMS mission hospital in Korea. Edmunds answered the call and joined Cutler and Rosetta Sherwood Hall when they returned to Korea on March 18, 1903. Edmunds opened Korea’s first training school for nurses in December the same year.

Dr. Annie J. Ellers (1860–1938), Presbyterian Board (see entry under Bunker).

Dr. Emma F. Ernsberger (1862–1935), WFMS, served at the Woman’s Hospital, Bogunyeogwan, upon arrival in Korea in 1899 and the Baldwin Dispensary at the East Gate from 1901 when Lillian N. Harris went up to Pyeong Yang.

Ethel M. Estey (1876–1929), WFMS, arrived in Korea on December 31, 1900, along with Alice J. Hammond (m. Sharp) and Mary R. Hillman. Estey was assigned to Pyeong Yang after initial language training.

Mary W. Follwell, older sister of Dr. Lillian Harris (Baldwin Dispensary at the East Gate), had served as WFMS missionary in Korea before marrying Dr. Edward Douglas Follwell, also of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who had continued the medical work of the Halls in Pyeong Yang.

Page 275 →Philip Loring Gillett (1872–1938), International Committee of the YMCA Seoul. Gillett arrived in Korea in 1901 to help establish the YMCA in Korea (1903) and served as its first secretary. He married Bertha Louise Allen in Shanghai in November 1903.

George W. Gillmore (1857–1933), Presbyterian Church, North, author of Korea from Its Capital: With a Chapter on Missions (1892). Along with Homer B. Hulbert and Dalzell A. Bunker, was one of the first Americans sent to teach at Yugyeong Gongwon, the first modern school founded by King Gojong in 1886 to instruct students in English.

Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall (1865–1951), WFMS, was the second medical doctor deployed by WFMS to Korea in 1890. Dr. Sherwood married her fiancée Dr. James Hall, who joined her in Korea as a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1892. The two established their medical work in Pyeong Yang in 1894 where they also opened a school and a church. Dr. Rosetta Hall went back to America after her husband’s death in 1894, but came back with her two children to serve in Korea in 1897 once again as a WFMS missionary. Dr. Rosetta Hall devoted 43 years of her life to missionary work in Korea.

dr. Sherwood Hall (1893–1991), son of Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall and Dr. William James Hall, who passed away in 1894. Sherwood was the first student at Pyeongyang Foreign School and would grow up to become a medical missionary to Korea himself. With his wife Dr. Marian Bottomley Hall (1896–1991), Sherwood Hall founded the first sanatorium for Korean tuberculosis patients at Haeju in 1928 with the help of his mother. The house the Halls built on the east coast of Korea at Hwajin-po was once used as a vacation home by Kim Il Sung and is known even today as the Kim Il Sung summer residence.

Dr. William James Hall (1860–94), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, husband of Rosetta Sherwood Hall, who had first been sent out to Korea by WFMS and resigned to marry. The couple initiated medical missionary work in Pyeong Yang.

Eva Lilian Hardie (1889–1955), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, grew up in Korea under missionary parents Robert A. Hardie (1865–1949), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and his wife Margaret M. Hardie. Eva Hardie and her sister Anne Elizabeth (Bessie) Hardie (1890–1974), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, received missionary training at the New York Bible Institute and returned to Korea as missionaries in their own right in 1913.

Page 276 →Dr. Lillian N. Harris (1865–1902), WFMS, younger sister of Mary Wealthy Harris (m. Folwell), served as medical missionary at the Baldwin Dispensary operated by the WFMS near the East Gate (Dongdaemun) and later at the women’s hospital in Pyeong Yang.

Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (1863–1949), a Congregationalist and graduate of Dartmouth, served for five years as teacher at Yugyeong Gongwon, the Royal English School in Seoul from his first arrival in Korea in 1886 until he returned to America in 1891. In 1893, Hulbert was deployed by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church to Korea, where he also served as director of the Trilingual Press. Hulbert published History of Korea (1905) and The Passing of Korea (1906) and contributed significantly to the modernization of the Korean language by introducing word spacing and punctuation marks. Hulbert was a member of the secret delegation deployed by Emperor Gojong to the peace conference in The Hague in 1907 to dispute Japanese influence. This action led to the forced abdication of Gojong and Hulbert’s expulsion. After Korea’s liberation, Hulbert returned as a state guest in 1949, but due to advanced age and the long journey, he passed away a week after his arrival on August 5 at the age of 86. His funeral was held as a state ceremony, and he was buried in Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery. His tombstone reads: “I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey.”

Jeanette Charlotte Hulbert (1889–1978), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1914 and was assigned to teach in the high school and college programs at Ewha. She documented Ewha students’ involvement in the March First Movement and brought records to publish in America during her furlough in 1919. She received her M A from Columbia University and took classes at Union Theological Seminary. She became a professor in the English Department at Ewha College in 1929.

George Heber Jones (1867–1919), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, taught at Paichai Hakdang, the school established by Henry G. Appenzeller. He and his wife, Margaret Josephine Jones, were sent to begin work in the Incheon (Jemulpo) region in 1893.

Margaret Josephine Jones (née Bengel) (1869–1962), was sent to Korea by WFMS in 1890. She left Ewha in 1893 to marry George Heber Jones (1867–1919), Methodist Episcopal Church, and serve with him at the port of Jemulpo.

Page 277 →Ella A. Lewis (1863–1927), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1892 and served as nurse under her friend Dr. Rosetta Sherwood (m. Hall), WFMS, before dedicating herself to full-time evangelical work until her death in 1927.

Jessie Bell Marker (1875–1957), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1905. She served with Lulu Miller in the Incheon area before being assigned to Ewha Haktang in June 1907, serving as acting president during Frey’s third furlough in 1912. Marker continued her evangelical work after 1913.

William J. McKenzie (1861–95), independent Canadian Presbyterian missionary who described his experiences with peasants of the Donghak Uprising in an article titled “Seven Months Among the Tong Haks” in The Korean Repository (1895, 6). McKenzie built up a strong Christian community in Sorae before he shot himself during a severe bout of illness. McKenzie was deeply mourned by his congregation, who praised him for devoting his life to their service.

Frederick S. Miller (1866–1937), of the Presbyterian mission arrived in Korea with his wife Anna Reinecke Miller in 1892. He taught at the Christian school founded by Underwood and became principal when Samuel. A. Moffett was transferred north to Pyeong Yang.

Hugh Miller (1872–1957), British and Foreign Bible Society, was married to Sarah Ellen “Nellie” Pierce in 1904.

Sarah Ellen “Nellie” Pierce (m. Miller) (1869–1944), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1897. She served at Ewha Haktang before joining Mrs. Scranton to help with her work at the Sangdong Church near the South Gate in 1899. Pierce married Hugh Miller in 1904. Even after marriage, Mrs. Miller continued to teach music and direct the chorus at Ewha.

Lula Adelia Miller (1870–1958), WFMS, arrived in Korea 10 months after Mary Hillman in November 1901 and was her cohort in educational and evangelical work in the Incheon (Jemulpo) area.

Samuel Austin Moffett (1864–1939), an early Presbyterian missionary who arrived in Korea in 1890, founded the Presbyterian Theological Seminary with two students in his home in Pyeong Yang in 1901, serving as president for 17 years. He was president of Soongsil College from 1918–28 and continued to live in Korea well after retirement, only leaving in 1936 after being forced out by the Japanese for not requiring Christian students to participate in ceremonies at a newly erected Japanese shrine.

Page 278 →Charles David Morris (1869–1927), Methodist Episcopal Church, North. Morris arrived in Korea in 1900 and took up work in Pyeong Yang. He was married to Clara Louise Ogilvy in September 1903 and was transferred to Yeongbyeon (Yongbyon). Morris was assigned the district superintendent of Wonju in 1917.

Clara Louise Ogilvy (m. Morris) (1881–1943), Presbyterian Board, North, teacher at the Pyeong Yang Foreign School. Clara Ogilvy Morris would continue their work even after her husband’s death in 1927. She became a WFMS missionary in 1927 and served in Chungju, establishing the Morris Memorial Chapel at the Chungju First Church in 1930.

William Arthur Noble (1866–1945), Methodist Episcopal Church, served in Korea with his wife Martha Lillian “Mattie” Noble from 1892–1934. Noble taught at Paichai Hakdang until he was transferred to Pyeong Yang after the death of Dr. William James Hall in 1894. The Nobles’ eldest daughter Ruth Emily would marry the oldest son of Henry G. Appenzeller, Henry Dodge Appenzeller.

Josephine “Josie” O. Paine (1869–1909), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1892 and served as the third principal of Ewha Haktang (1892–1907). Together with Frey, Paine formalized the curriculum of Ewha, transforming it into a modern school. Despite her deteriorating health after 1907, she continued her missionary work, traveling extensively in the countryside as an evangelist. In 1909, she contracted cholera and passed away in Haeju.

Edward C. Pauling (1864–1960), Northern Baptist missionary to Korea who married his fiancée Mabel Valentine Hall (1870–1909) in Yokohama in February 1895.

Clarence Frederick Reid (1849–1915), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, pioneered the Southern Methodists’ work in Korea after more than 16 years as a missionary in China.

William Davis Reynolds (1867–1951) was one of the first seven members of the Southern Presbyterian Church to come to Korea in 1892. Reynolds decided on coming to Korea for mission work after hearing Underwood and Yun Chi-ho speak at Vanderbilt in 1891. Reynolds played an important role in helping to complete the first full translation of the Bible into Korean. He later taught at Pyeong Yang Theological Seminary.

Henrietta Perry Robbins (1871–1955), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1902 and began educational and evangelical work in Pyeong Yang. Robbins joined Page 279 →Estey in traveling for mission work throughout the northern regions and taught and headed numerous Christian girls’ schools in the north.

Louisa C. Rothweiler (1853–1920), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1887 and served as second principal of Ewha Haktang from 1890–92. She returned from her first furlough in the spring of 1894 to pursue evangelistic work, leaving the schoolwork to Paine and Frey. In 1898, Rothweiler established a residence for single female missionaries in Dongdaemun (East Gate) and moved there but had to return to the United States due to deteriorating health. She continued to support Korean missions from the United States until her death in 1920.

Mary F. Scranton (1832–1909), WFMS, an older widowed woman, was the first WFMS missionary to be sent to Korea in 1885. Scranton was the founder of Ewha Haktang or Ewha Girls’ School in 1886 in the Jeongdong area of Seoul. After returning from her first furlough in 1892, Scranton established Sangdong Church near Namdaemun (South Gate), where she also founded a day school for girls as well as a training school for Bible women. She traveled extensively as an itinerant evangelist until her death in 1909. She is buried in Yangwhajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery.

Dr. William B. Scranton (1856–1922), first Methodist medical missionary to Korea, reached Korea in February 1885, a few months before his mother Mary F. Scranton who was separately deployed by WFMS. Dr. Scranton opened a Methodist dispensary in Jeongdong in 1885.

Alice Hammond (m. Sharp) (1871–1972), WFMS, arrived in December 1900 alongside Ethel M. Estey and Mary R. Hillman. Hammond married Robert A. Sharp, whom she had met while training to become a missionary in America. She continued to serve in Korea after her husband’s death in 1908. She founded Yeong Myeong Girls’ School, where the famous Independence activist and martyr Yu Gwan-sun was a student. Alice Hammond Sharp sent Yu to Ewha Haktang to further her education. She served in Korea until she retired in 1939.

Robert A. Sharp (1872–1906), Methodist Episcopal Church, was engaged to marry Alice Hammond who had come out earlier in 1900 before his own arrival in Korea in 1903. The two were wed at Ewha and served together in the Chung-cheong region until his death in 1906.

Dr. Rosetta Sherwood (m. Hall) (1865–1951; see entry under Hall).

Ellen Strong (1860–1903), Presbyterian missionary to Korea from 1892, taught at Jeongdong Girls’ School, which later became Chungshin Girls’ School.

Page 280 →Sarah Willison Fisher (m. Swallen) (1863–1945), Frey’s friend and a fellow graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, was married to William L. Swallen, Presbyterian Church missionary to Korea, on the day of her graduation in 1892.

William Fisher Swallen (1859–1954), missionary to Korea from the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. The Swallens arrived in Seoul in November 1892 and moved to Wonsan in 1894 to carry out missionary work in Hamgyeong Province, before transferring to the Pyeong Yang mission in 1899. The Swallens continued their mission work until 1940, when they, along with other missionaries, returned to the U.S. at the height of the Asia-Pacific War.

Wilbur C. Swearer (1871–1916), Methodist Episcopal Church, arrived in Korea in 1898, where he served at the Sangdong Church and taught at Paichai Hakdang. He and his wife Lillian May Shattuck Swearer (1872–1955) were pioneers in evangelical work in Chungcheong Province.

Ora May Tuttle (1879–1924), WFMS, came to Korea in 1907 and taught younger students at Ewha Haktang.

Horace Grant Underwood (1859–1916), was the first resident missionary of the Presbyterian Church, North, to be deployed to Korea. Underwood arrived in Korea on the same boat as Henry G. Appenzeller on Easter Sunday 1885. Underwood published A Concise Dictionary of the Korean Language with James S. Gale and Homer B. Hulbert in 1890 and also worked with colleagues in translating the Bible into Korean. In 1912 he became president of the Joseon Christian College (Gyeongshin School) that was eventually to become Yonsei University. Underwood also established the first Presbyterian church in Korea, Saemoonan Church, in 1887.

Dr. Lilias S. Horton Underwood (1851–1921), arrived in Korea in 1888 as a medical missionary deployed by the Presbyterian Church, North. She was married to Horace G. Underwood in 1889.

Karl Waeber (1841–1916), the Russian minister to Korea, and his wife hosted King Gojong when he took refuge at the Russian legation after the murder of Queen Min.

Katherine C. Wambold (1866–1948), Presbyterian Church, North, served as nurse after arriving in Korea in 1896. Wambold also played an important role as teacher at Yeondong School and at the Saemoonan Church as well as an itinerant evangelist aiding Mrs. Lillias Underwood (1851–1921).

Page 281 →Students and Teachers at Ewha

Mrs. Ha Ran-sa (Kim Ran-sa, Nan-sa, Nancy) (1872–1919), was married to a wealthy and much older government official in the Incheon area and as a married woman was prohibited from enrolling at Ewha. Frey recounts how Ha came to her in the middle of the night in 1894 and explained that her life was in darkness just as the lantern that had just gone out. Frey was moved to admit her. Ha went to the United States in 1897 and became the first Korean woman to receive a university degree when she graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with a BA in 1906. Ha returned to teach at Ewha and played an important role in the movement for independence. She died possibly of poisoning in Beijing in March 1919 on her way to deliver a message protesting Japanese rule at the Paris Peace Conference being held in Versailles.

Dr. Helen Kim (Kim Hwal-lan), Ewha student who graduated from the college program in 1918, taught at the school before going on to study at Ohio Wesleyan University. Dr. Kim received her doctorate from Columbia University. She would become the seventh president of Ewha, succeeding Alice Appenzeller in 1939.

Induk Pahk (Bak In-deok) (1896–1980), former student of Ewha and member of the third graduating class of the college program in 1916. Pahk remained at Ewha as a teacher and was arrested for participating in demonstrations of the March First Movement in 1919. Pahk later went to America on a scholarship and graduated from Wesleyan College in Georgia and Teachers’ College, Columbia University. She spoke across the country to support missionary work and returned to Korea in 1931.

dr. Esther Pak (Kim Jeom-dong) (1877–1910), became the first Ewha student and indeed first Korean woman to become a medical doctor. Esther served as translator and assistant to Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall before moving north to Pyeong Yang with the Halls after marrying Dr. William Hall’s assistant, Pak Yusan. The young couple traveled to America with the widowed Rosetta Hall, who had plans to send Esther to medical school while employing her husband as her servant. Park died in America where he labored as a farmhand to support his wife. Esther graduated from Baltimore Women’s Medical College in 1900 and returned to Korea as a WFMS missionary alongside Dr. Rosetta Hall with whom she continued to serve until her death in 1910.

Page 282 →Maggie Ramsey, the young student most often mentioned by name in Frey’s early letters. Students were often named after sponsors when they were baptized.

Marcella Shin (Shin Ma-suk) (1892–1965), one of three members to graduate from Ewha’s first college class in 1914, alongside Lee Hwa-sook and Kim Alice. Marcella Shin worked for Korean independence in association with Syngman Rhee, while studying and living in the United States.

Mrs. Mary Ye (Yeo Meryae [m. Hwang]) (1872–1933), an early student of Ewha who went on to become a teacher and assistant to Mrs. Scranton. She also served as a nurse in the first women’s hospital and a Bible woman. She married Hwang Hyeon-mo, who went to America to study but died soon after arrival in 1894. As Hwang Meryae, she assisted Empress Eom in founding Jinmyeong Girls’ School in 1906, where she served as the first principal.

Public Figures

King Gojong (1852–1919), the penultimate king of the Joseon Dynasty, ruled Korea from 1864–1907. He declared himself emperor in 1897 after he emerged from exile at the Russian legation following the murder of his wife, Queen Min (posthumous title Empress Myeongseong) (1851–95) by the Japanese in 1895. Queen Min actively sought to counteract the isolationist policies of her father-in-law, Heungseon Daewongun (Tai Won Kun), who had served as regent in his son’s minority. Gojong was forced to abdicate and pass on the throne to his son Sunjong (1874–1926) by the Japanese in 1907. The Joseon Dynasty ended in 1910 after 519 years when Korea was annexed by Japan.

Dr. Jaison (Sau Chai Pil, Seo Jae-pil, Philip Jaisohn) (1868–1951), was a reformer and independence activist and was exiled after his involvement in the Gapsin Coup of 1884 with like-minded young intellectuals like Kim Ok-kyun and Park Yeong-ho, who sought to overturn the regime and introduce reforms. The coup ended in three days and more than half of his family were killed in the aftermath. Seo fled to Japan and went to the United States where he became the first Korean to become naturalized as a US citizen in 1890, adopting the name of Philip Jaisohn. Seo also received his MD from Columbia Medical College in 1892. Seo returned from exile in the United States in 1895, when reformists were in power after the Sino-Japanese War. He sought to establish national independence from foreign powers, establishing the Independence Club (1896) and the Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent) in the same year, the first newspaper to be published entirely in the Korean phonetic hangeul, promoting civil rights and Page 283 →suffrage. He was ordered to leave in 1898 when conservatives accused him of seeking to replace the monarchy with a republic. Exiled once again to America, Seo maintained close ties with Koreans seeking independence during Japanese rule and hosted Frey at his home in Pennsylvania during her last furlough.

Tai Won Kun (Heungseon Daewongun, “prince of the great court”; title of Yi Ha-eung) (1821–98), regent of Joseon during the minority rule of King Gojong. The title of Daewongun was given to the father of a king who had not been king himself. Gojong had acceded to the throne in 1864 when his predecessor, King Cheoljong, died without a direct heir to the throne. Daewongun attempted reforms to restore the central power of the throne and was also the force behind the isolationist policy that maintained Korea as the “hermit kingdom.”

Syngman Rhee (1875–1965), was an independence activist and served as the first president of South Korea from 1948–60. He was educated at the Methodist Paichai Hakdang, where he was converted to Christianity. A member of the Independence Club, Rhee was imprisoned on charges of attempting to oust King Gojong in 1899 and went to the United States upon release in 1904, where he received a master’s from Harvard University and a PhD from Princeton University in 1910. In 1919 he was appointed acting president of the provisional government in Shanghai (1919–24).

Mr. Yun (Yun Tchi-ho, Yun Chi-ho) (1865–1945), along with Seo Jae-pil (Sau Chai Pil, Philip Jaisohn), was an important early nationalist and member of the Independence Club led by Seo. Like Seo, Yun was educated in the United States and served in various positions in the Joseon government. He first attended Vanderbilt University in Tennessee before going to Emory University in Georgia. Yun believed strongly in Christianity as a strong force for modernization in Korea. Yun accompanied the king’s special envoy Min Yong-hwan to the coronation of Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

Ma Ai-bang (1871–1905), Yun’s wife, was a Chinese woman educated at a school run by Southern Methodists in Shanghai. Yun himself first converted to Christianity while studying at the Anglo-Chinese College in Shanghai.