Page 288 →Page 289 →Notes

Introduction

1. Korean names begin with family name followed by given name. The case of women’s names is rather more complicated for several reasons. Often girls were not given proper names at birth and received their “full” names upon being christened by the missionaries at Ewha. Ransa (alternatively Nansa) is the alliteration for Nancy. Korean women do not take on their husband’s surname upon marriage, but the missionaries began the practice of calling their married students by their husbands’ surname. Hence Mrs. Ha was the name by which Ha Ransa went both in Korea and in America where she was registered as Mrs. Nansa Kim Ha at Ohio Wesleyan University. The letter received from the registrar of Ohio Wesleyan by Ewha in 1966 states: “Mrs. Ha was born in 1875, and she entered Ohio Wesleyan in 1900. She took the Literature Course and graduated in 1906.” Although she was known by her married name—Ha Ransa—by her contemporaries, much as the first doctor Pak Esther (Kim Jeomdong) was known also by her married name, there has been a recent movement to reinstate her “true” name as Kim Ransa following her father’s surname.
2. See Jaquet, Transclasses: A Theory of Social Non-reproduction (2023).
3. I am indebted to the Lulu E. Frey files at Drew University and the only published biography of Frey by Choe Suk-gyeong, Hanguk yeoseong godeunggyoyugui changsija Peurai [Frey: Pioneer of Higher Education for Korean Women] (2013).
4. See Appendix A. This letter to a representative of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) explaining her spiritual motivation to become a missionary is from Drew University Files for Lulu E. Frey. All Frey letters unless otherwise specified are from the Ewha Archives.
5. This history of persecution gave rise to the inauguration of the greatest number of Catholic saints outside of Europe when Pope John Paul II canonized 103 martyrs “in the first canonization outside Rome since the Middle Ages” (NYT May 7, 1984) during his visit to Korea in 1984. The Pope emphasized the uniqueness of a history of a people converted without the initial intervention of priests.
6. Ewha Baengnyeonsa [100 Years of Ewha History] published by Ewha Womans University Press in 1994 to mark the Centennial of the founding of the school, provides close details of the early days.
7. Page 290 →The work of the historian J. G. A. Pocock documents this important shift. The main lines of his influential argument can be glimpsed in “Virtues, rights, and manners: A model for historians of political thought.”
8. Jürgen Habermas (tr. Thomas Burger), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. See, in particular, 27–56.
9. A missiology that followed Rufus Anderson’s theory of the “three-self” mission theory, developed by a missionary couple to China, John and Helen Nevius, to build a strong native church by requiring new converts to take charge of church finances, church governance, and evangelism. Church membership would be based on a rigorous system of training and testing administered by the missionaries. See Cha, chapter 3, “The Conversion Conundrum: The Nevius Method and the Problem of ‘Rice Christians,’” 6–75.
10. Hyaeweol Choi in Gender Politics at Home and Abroad (2020) writes about the intersection of traditional Confucian notions of womanly virtue in Joseon with Japanese Meiji gender ideology of “good wife, wise mother” and “the Victorian notion of domesticity introduced by Protestant missionaries from the United States” (28). Choi’s work places emphasis on the central place held by Korean women in the process of Korean modernization inflected by “Protestant modernity.”
11. Throughout, “m.” refers to “married.”
12. For the rise of female philanthropy in England, see the classic study by F. K. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England and for America, Joan Marie Johnson, Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1860–1967.
13. Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Korea Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church (AMMEC), 1906, 31–32, as cited in Choi, 2009, 118.
14. Woman’s Mission Field, no. 10 (October 1906), 365, as cited in Choi, 2009, 91–92.
15. Hwangseong Sinmun, September 17, 1908, as cited in Yoo, 49–50.
16. See Paul S. Cha’s excellent survey of conflicting loyalties and allegiances between the missionaries and their Korean converts amid colonial rule in Balancing Communities: Nation, State and Protestant Christianity in Korea, 1884–1942 (2022). Especially pertinent are chapters 5 and 7, which chart the uneasy relationship between the missionaries and the Japanese colonial government.
17. As cited in “In Memoriam—Miss Lulu E. Frey,” C. D. Morris, The Korea Mission Field, 1921, vol. 5, 96.

1893

1. The SS China primarily transported Chinese immigrants to the United States, making round-trips from Hong Kong to San Francisco with a stop in Yokohama. Lulu Frey boarded at San Francisco on September 12.
2. Mary Wealthy Harris (1862–1958), Woman’s Foreign Missionary Service (WFMS), served at Ewha from 1891 until she married Dr. Edward Douglas Follwell (1867–1932), serving in Pyeong Yang, in 1897. Her younger sister, Dr. Lillian Harris (1865–1902), WFMS, Page 291 →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.
3. Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (1863–1949), a Congregationalist and graduate of Dartmouth, served for five years as teacher at the Royal English School (Yugyeong Gongwon) in Seoul after his arrival in Korea in 1886. He compiled a Korean-English dictionary (1890) with fellow missionaries Horace Grant Underwood (1859–1916) and James Scarth Gale (1863–1937) and served the school 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 and served as director of the Trilingual Press. From 1897–1905 Hulbert served as principal of the Imperial Normal and Middle Schools and published History of Korea (1905) and The Passing of Korea (1906). He contributed significantly to the modernization of the Korean language by introducing word spacing and punctuation marks. Hulbert’s contributions to Korean history, culture, and language are extensive. In 1903, he was appointed the first president of the Korean YMCA. Emperor Gojong sent Hulbert as secret emissary to the United States to protest Japan’s aggression of declaring Korea a protectorate in 1905. Hulbert was also a member of the secret delegation deployed to the peace conference in The Hague in 1907. 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. Unfortunately due to advanced age and the long journey, he passed away a week after his return 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.”
4. Nakao Yukiye (1868–1944) majored in art at Ohio Wesleyan University (1889–93) and returned to teach at Kwassui Girls’ School, founded by Elizabeth Russell (1836–1928), WFMS, in Nagasaki where she had been a student. She might have been funded by the Hulberts and hence been in their service during her years of study in America.
5. Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915), Methodist itinerant preacher and former slave, author of An Autobiography, The Story of the Lord’s Dealing with Mrs Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist, Containing an Account of her Life Work of Faith, and her Travels in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, India, and Africa, as An Independent Missionary (1893). Smith supported the temperance movement and raised money for the Amanda Smith Orphanage and Industrial Home for Abandoned and Destitute Colored Children that opened in Chicago in 1899.
6. Hindi word for fan that became popular during the British Raj to denote large swinging fan attached to the ceiling and pulled by a cord to be flapped for a current. Several such fans could be connected to cover larger areas.
7. Perhaps Bernard Lucas (1860–1920), London Missionary Society, missionary to India.
8. Jemulpo, now Incheon, port on the western coast of Korea, opened in 1883.
9. Margaret Josephine Jones (née Bengel) (1869–1962), was sent to Korea by the WFMS in 1890. She left Ewha in 1893 to marry George Heber Jones (1867–1919), Methodist Page 292 →Episcopal Church, and serve with him at the port of Jemulpo. WFMS did not sponsor married women unless they were widows. George Heber Jones taught at Paichai Hakdang, the school established by Henry G. Appenzeller (1858–1902). Appenzeller and his wife Ella were the first Methodist missionaries to arrive in Korea in 1885 alongside 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.
10. Word originating from the British Raj to denote a teatime snack or meal. The word is still used in parts of India and Pakistan to refer to snacks in between meals or a packed lunch or snack.
11. Josephine 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 standardized the curriculum, transforming Ewha 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. Paine had come out to welcome Frey.
12. Belle J. Allen (1862–1946), WFMS, deployed to Japan in 1888. A 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 of Yokohama in 1898 and served out the rest of her life as a medical missionary to India.
13. Mary F. Scranton (1832–1909), WFMS, an older widow, was the first WFMS missionary to be sent to Korea in 1885. She was accompanied by her son Dr. William B. Scranton, Methodist Episcopal Church, North, and his family. Scranton was the founder of the Ewha Haktang or Ewha Girls’ School in 1886 in the Jeongdong area of Seoul. After returning from her first furlough in 1892, Scranton established the 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 travelled extensively as an itinerant evangelist until her death in 1909. She is buried in Yangwhajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery.
14. Ella A. Lewis (1863–1927), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1892, and served as a nurse under her friend Dr. Rosetta Sherwood (m. Hall) (1865–1951), WFMS, before dedicating herself to full-time evangelical work until her death in 1927. Dr. Sherwood was the second medical doctor deployed by the WFMS to Korea in 1890, after the earlier arrival of Dr. Meta Howard (1862–1930), WFMS, in 1887. 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.
15. Mary M. Cutler, MD (1865–1948), WFMS, served as a medical missionary for 42 years after her first arrival in Korea in 1893. She began work with Dr. Rosetta Sherwood at Bogunyeogwan, the first Western hospital established for women in 1887 by the 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.
16. Page 293 →Sarah W. Fisher Swallen (1863–1945), Frey’s friend and a fellow graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, was married to William L. Swallen (1865–1954), a missionary to Korea from the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. The couple 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 returned to the United States at the height of the Asia-Pacific War.
17. Apparently so named after the famed businessperson and religious leader, John Wanamaker (1838–1922), a strong supporter of Dwight Moody, who also served as the first corresponding secretary in the YMCA movement. Wanamaker helped fund the construction of the first YMCA building in Korea. In the early days many Ewha students were given Western first names, after American benefactors.
18. First French-Korean dictionary published by Bishop Félix-Clair Ridel (1830–84) in 1880.
19. The first concise Korean-English, English-Korean dictionary mainly for missionary purposes was published by Horace G. Underwood with Homer B. Hulbert and James S. Gale in 1890.
20. Spanish dollars, also known as Mexican dollars, were imported in large quantities into China and were widely circulated as official silver currency throughout East Asia.
21. Jessie appears several times in the letters. She was an assistant to a seamstress in Bellefontaine before setting up her own business in later years.
22. Louisa C. Rothweiler (1853–1920), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1887 and served as the second principal of Ewha Haktang from 1890–92. She was on her first furlough and would return in the spring of 1894. Upon her return she pursued 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.
23. She seems to be describing a traditional village school called seodang.
24. Annie J. Ellers (m. Bunker) (1860–1938), Presbyterian Church, North, the first female medical missionary to arrive in Korea in 1886, had opened a school for girls in Jeongdong in 1887 that later became Chungshin Girls’ School. Ellers also served as personal physician to the queen. She married fellow missionary Dalzell A. Bunker (1853–1932) in 1887.
25. Both friends of Georgia: Florence Edith Curl (1882–1971) and Lena May Colton (1881–1950), daughter of wealthy businessperson Joseph Colton (1848–1916), whose second wife was Mary Miller (1867–1944), Frey’s closest friend.
26. Dr. William B. Scranton, first Methodist medical missionary to Korea. See 1893, n. 13.
27. Alice Appenzeller (1885–1950), daughter of Henry and Ella Appenzeller (see 1893 n. 9), was the first Western child to be born in Korea. She became the sixth principal of Ewha Haktang in 1922.
28. Page 294 →Children of Franklin Ohlinger (1845–1919), Methodist Episcopal Church, who came to Korea with his wife and three children in 1887 from his first post in China. He was in charge of the Trilingual (Sammun) Press within Paichai Hakdang. David (12) and Wilhelmina (9) Ohlinger were the first children of the missionaries to die in Korea and were buried in Yangwhajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery.
29. Geodung. The renowned traveler Isabella Bird Bishop (1831–1904), who visited Korea between 1894–97, gives a detailed description of the procession as “the barbaric and bizarre splendor of the Kur-dong” in the third chapter of her Korea and Her Neighbors (1897).
30. The king himself had bestowed the name of Ewha Haktang or Pear Blossom School as a special mark of his favor, giving the school official cachet. Scranton would have been happier with an earlier idea floated, “Entire Trust School,” but was grateful for the endorsement that brought in more students. She writes in a contribution to The Heathen Woman’s Friend: “The school name is in no degree wonderful; it is only the royal setting which gives it importance” (Vol. 19, no.1, July 1887, 11–12).

1894

1. Frey is addressing her Sunday school class of boys. This letter is marked “Received April 7, 1894.”
2. Laura Patterson (1867–1949) is a neighborhood friend who appears frequently in the letters.
3. Mary E. Miller (1867–1944), one of her closest friends, was married in 1893 to a wealthy Bellefontaine businessperson, Joseph Colton, 20 years her senior. Later letters indicate that Frey would address Colton directly for substantial donations to support mission work.
4. Nettie M. Frey (1862–95), Frey’s older sister.
5. Aunt Anna’s son and Frey’s cousin Webster Kelsey Sterline (1878–1983). Anna Kelsey Sterline (1851–1901) was a half-sister of Frey’s mother 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).
6. Town of Saint Joseph in Missouri where two of her aunts lived.
7. Presumably a cousin, named after Frey’s maternal grandfather Guy Carrollton Kelsey (1804–93).
8. The wrapper was a light and simple gown often in decorative fabric worn by women in private quarters.
9. A popular Chinese silk textile made from weaving yarns with different thicknesses resulting in a slubbed texture. Pongee was an important export to America in the period.
10. Dongdaemun Church was founded by the Scrantons in 1892 alongside the Baldwin Dispensary, the second women’s medical facility operated by WFMS.
11. Japanese rickshaw or wheeled sedan chair called jinrikisha popular in the Meiji period (1868–1912).
12. Page 295 →A former student named Annie is mentioned in the April 1893 issue of The Heathen Woman’s Friend as residing at the Baldwin Church in Dongdaemun.
13. A fine woolen fabric woven in a twill weave popular in the Victorian era comparable to cashmere.
14. Personal updates about residents were published in the Bellefontaine Republican, a weekly paper that was regularly sent out to Frey in Korea and always a welcome source of news of home.
15. Grant Frey (1864–99), older brother who traveled the world.
16. Etta Aline Snay (1877–1948), a high-school classmate often mentioned in Frey’s letters.
17. Davenport College was founded in 1855 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South as a women’s college in Lenoir, North Carolina. Etta Snay taught music there.
18. Inwangsan to left and Namsan to right from her perspective in Jeongdong.
19. Students were given “Christian” names when they were baptized.
20. Jumeoni, small pouch to carry personal belongings fastened with drawstrings.
21. Martha Belle Dickinson (1887–1973), oldest daughter of Nettie and husband Frank Dickinson (1858–1928).
22. Frey’s friend Mary Miller, married to the much older Joseph Colton, had recently given birth to a son, Edwin Miller Colton (1894–1958). Lena, Joseph Colton’s daughter from his first marriage, was Georgia’s best friend.
23. Younger sister of her friend Laura Patterson.
24. Jang—traditional Korean cabinet.
25. Nickname for Georgia, her younger sister.
26. High-school classmate Elsie May Williamson (1868–1941).
27. She is writing on a postcard marked Carte Postale issued by “Empire du Japon.”
28. Reference to the Donghak Peasant Revolution (1894–95), a rebellion that prompted the king’s plea for assistance from Chinese troops, leading to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). Impoverished peasants supported Donghak (Eastern Learning), a Neo-Confucian movement and religion founded by Choe Je-u (1824–64) that was an amalgamation of diverse religious ideas and philosophies opposed to Western and foreign influence but committed to the ideal of human equality.
29. Dr. William James Hall (1860–94), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, husband of Rosetta Sherwood Hall who had first been sent out to Korea by the WFMS and resigned to marry. The couple had begun medical missionary work in Pyeong Yang.
30. Kim Ok-gyun (1851–94), leader of the radical reform movement advocating closer ties with the West for modernization, had been exiled in Japan after the failure of the Gapsin Coup in 1884. Kim was assassinated in Shanghai in 1894.
31. After the Restoration, Charles II had Oliver Cromwell’s body exhumed and posthumously executed.
32. Homer B. Hulbert, whom Frey had first met onboard the steamer China, was one of the missionaries most proficient in the Korean language (see 1893, n. 3). Hulbert and James S. Gale assisted in the compilation of Horace Underwood’s A Concise Dictionary Page 296 →of the Korean Language published in 1890. Hulbert is also credited with establishing the system for spacing between words that made Hangeul—Korean phonetic writing—much more reader-friendly.
33. The Baldwin Dispensary and Baldwin Chapel had been established near the East Gate (Dongdaemun) in 1892 with funds from Mrs. L. B. Baldwin.
34. 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 nurse in the first women’s hospital and Bible woman. As Hwang Meryae, she assisted Empress Eom in founding Jinmyeong Girls’ School in 1906, where she served as the first principal.
35. Sally Beaumont Sill (1833–1903), wife of John M. B. Sill (1831–1901), American diplomat, minister to Korea (1894–97). The letters of Sally Sill and her sister Elizabeth Lilly Graham (1844–1941), who accompanied her to Seoul, were compiled and published under the title Letters from Joseon (2013).
36. Frances A. Allen (1859–1948), wife of Horace Newton Allen (1858–1932), first Presbyterian missionary to arrive in Korea with Robert Samuel Maclay (1824–1907), Methodist Episcopal Church, based in Japan and deployed to survey the possibility of a Methodist mission in Korea in 1884. Allen was admitted to Korea before missionaries were officially accepted as medical doctor to the American Legation. Allen successfully treated the king’s nephew, Min Yeong-ik, injured during the Gapsin Coup, securing the lasting trust of the king. 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.
37. Servant who helped Nettie with housework.
38. Mary E. Greathouse (1818–1906), mother of Clarence Ridgley Greathouse (1846–99), legal advisor to King Gojong from 1891 to his death in 1899. Greathouse led the investigation into the murder of Queen Min in 1895. The personal letters of the family and journals are held by the University of Kentucky Library.
39. Wonsan, northern port city on East Sea.
40. Inspired by The King’s Daughters & Other Stories for Girls (1877), King’s Daughters was an international Christian philanthropic organization founded by 10 women in 1886 quickly growing to over 50,000 women. The group operated “Lend-A-Hand” clubs across America with the motto: “Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand.” A King’s Daughters circle would also be founded at Ewha in 1909.
41. Nickname for Mary Hillman (1870–1928), a friend from Ohio Wesleyan, who would also come out to Korea as a missionary in 1900.
42. The absence of these letters from the collection suggests that some of the letters sent off directly to publications were not retrieved.
43. Robert Patterson Kennedy (1840–1918) of Bellefontaine, who had fought in the Civil War and served as lieutenant governor of Ohio, was remarried on September 4, 1894.
44. Page 297 →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, one of the first Americans sent to teach at Yugyeong Gongwon, the first modern state school founded by King Gojong in 1886.
45. Text of Invitation: Queen’s Birthday, 1894: Mrs. Gardner requests the pleasure of your company at a Garden Party in honour of the Anniversary of the Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Victoria on May 24th, at 4 o’clock. Tennis:
46. Sister of her best friend Mary Miller Colton, Clarabel is also referred to as Clara as later in this letter.
47. Frank P. Dickinson (1858–1928), Nettie’s husband.
48. The early incarnation of the Moody Bible Institute was the Bible study program of the May Institute founded by Emma Dryer (1835–1925) in 1883 to train women in evangelistic mission work. In 1886, Dryer succeeded in securing the support of the famous evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–99) to found the Chicago Evangelization Society “for the education and training of Christian workers, including teachers, ministers, missionaries, and musicians who may completely and effectively proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The formal name of the school became the Moody Bible Institute after Moody’s death in 1899.
49. Victoria C. Arbuckle (1877–1921), one of three single Presbyterian missionaries in Korea at the time, served in Korea 1891–96.
50. In 1902, a married male missionary in the Presbyterian Church made $1,250 while a single woman missionary made $625 (see Hyaeweol Choi, Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea, 29).
51. Sarah B. Capron (1828–1919), who had served for many years as a missionary and educator of girls and women in Madras, India, was named superintendent of the Women’s Division of the Moody School in 1889.
52. The Japanese woman she had met on the steamer on her first voyage out (see 1893, n. 4).
53. Jean M. Gheer (1846–1920), WFMS, helped Elizabeth Russell (1836–1928), WFMS, found Kwassui Girls’ School in Nagasaki in 1879, today Kwassui Women’s University. Gheer moved to Fukuoka where she founded the Fukuoka Eiwa Girls’ School in 1885, which has become the present-day Fukuoka Jo Gakuin University.
54. Emma Caroline Van Petten (1854–1916), WFMS, principal of the Bible Training School for Women in Yamate, Yokohama.
55. A magnitude 6.6 earthquake with epicenter in Tokyo Bay hit on June 20, 1894. The cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama as well as downtown Tokyo were affected.
56. Carrie A. Heaton (1862–1941), WFMS, Sendai, arrived in Japan in 1893 on the same ship as Frey. She served in Japan until 1929.
57. William Xavier Ninde (1832–1901), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, traveled widely, visiting India, Japan, Korea, and China.
58. Page 298 →Mary Clarke Nind (1825–1905), WFMS, traveled widely as an evangelist to China, Tibet, India, Japan, Africa, and South America. She was known as “Mother” Nind and also “Our Little Bishop” for her missionary work. She was a very successful fund-raiser for the WFMS in the 1870s and 1880s.
59. Belle J. Allen, Frey’s friend stationed in Japan (see 1893, n. 12).
60. Arima Onsen famous for its hot springs is located within the city limits of Kobe.
61. First mention of the Sino-Japanese War that officially began on July 25, 1894, and ended April 17, 1895. King Gojong had requested aid from China to suppress the Donghak Uprising that had broken out in April to protest oppressive taxation and government incompetence. By June Japanese troops were sent to Korea in answer to the deployment of thousands of Chinese soldiers. The Japanese claimed that the Chinese had not kept to the terms of the Convention of Tientsin (1885) whereby both countries were bound to inform each other concerning deployment of troops to Korea.
62. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92), Quaker poet and abolitionist.
63. These two stanzas are here in inverted order and are from the poem by Whittier titled “The Eternal Goodness.”
64. War was officially declared on July 25 with the Battle of Pungdo off Asan.
65. Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), Chinese general appointed imperial resident of Seoul in 1885 after suppressing the Gapsin Coup (1885). Yuan served as commander of Chinese stationary forces in Korea and was able to escape humiliation in China’s defeat because he was recalled just before war broke out at the end of July 1893. Yuan would later serve as president of the Republic of China (1912–1916).
66. E. D. Steward, a Chinese owner of a grocery supplies store in the Jeongdong neighborhood where the foreigners and missionaries first settled. He was head chef on the boat that brought Lucius H. Foote, the first American minister to Korea, and hence went by the name “Steward.” Steward advertised English ham, American bacon, and apple butter as well as fountain pens, ink, and scales. The others mentioned must also have been store owners of Chinese origin.
67. She is referring to her son Dr. William Scranton, also missionary to Korea.
68. Isaac T. Headland (1859–1942) and wife, Methodist Episcopal Mission, Beijing.
69. Troops from the USS Baltimore were headed toward Seoul to protect the Americans.
70. Russian Minister Karl Waeber (1841–1910) and his wife, who later hosted King Gojong, who took refuge at the Russian legation after the murder of Queen Min.
71. David S. Spencer (1854–1929) and wife, Methodist Episcopal Church, Aoyama, Tokyo.
72. Methodist Episcopal; the Kwassui Girls’ School was founded in Nagasaki in 1879.
73. Contemporary spelling for the port city of Busan.
74. Letter from Mrs. M. F. Scranton dated July 20, 1894, above.
75. Mrs. B. R. Cowen, head of the Cincinnati Branch of the WFMS, authored History of the Cincinnati Branch, Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, 1869–94 (1895).
76. Page 299 →On July 25, the Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on two Chinese vessels, the Guangwang and the Zhiyuan, off the coast of Pungdo (Asan). The Guangwang was struck by Japanese fire and suffered an explosion in its powder magazine. The Zhiyuan managed to escape.
77. Centennial anniversary of the American War of Independence (1876).
78. Charles Betts Galloway (1849–1909), bishop of Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
79. Methodists in the South splintered off to form the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1845 over the issue of slavery and the increasingly strong abolitionist sentiment among Northern Methodists.
80. This sentence is crossed out, probably by her parents who edited her letters before sending them off for publication in local newspapers or missionary newsletters.
81. These last three paragraphs are also crossed out.
82. There was a major outbreak of the plague in Hong Kong in 1894.
83. Maud E. Simons (1865–98), WFMS, was on the same boat as Belle Allen shipwrecked in Yokohama in 1898 and did not survive.
84. Kwassui Jo Gakko, also referred to as M. E. Girls’ School, founded by WFMS missionaries in 1879.
85. SS Chow Chow Foo, an iron steamship schooner built in Lübeck, Germany, in 1885, sailed from Hamburg to ports in the Far East.
86. Donghak, “Eastern Learning.” On the Donghak Peasant Revolution, see 1894, n. 28.
87. Josephine Paine’s private servant, “John Wanamaker” (see 1893, n. 17).
88. 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, n. 6). McKenzie built up a strong Christian community in Sorae before shooting himself during a severe bout of illness. McKenzie was deeply mourned by his congregation, who praised him for devoting his life to serving them.
89. Mrs. Scranton had left the school mainly in the hands of Paine and Frey as she moved to the Namdaeumun (South Gate) area and devoted herself to Sangdong Church founded with her son, Dr. William Scranton. She focused increasingly on training Bible women and engaging in evangelical work.
90. Delaware, Ohio, location of Ohio Wesleyan University she had attended from 1889 to 1892.
91. Jingogae today Chungmu-ro, where the post office was located.
92. Josiah L. Albritton (1847–1931), pastor of the Bellefontaine Methodist Episcopal Church, seems to have become embroiled in some kind of scandal. Frey had first confided in Albritton about her calling to be a missionary. See the letter to Miss Conklin in appendix A.
93. Contemporary spelling for Pyeong Yang.
94. Page 300 →America was in an economic depression from 1893–97. Industrial production fell drastically as unemployment rose, grain prices crashed, and there were widespread bank runs resulting in loss of life savings. The political upheaval led to the election of Republican William McKinley in 1896.
95. Short published Christian texts distributed by the millions to encourage evangelical learning both in America and abroad. These materials were often distributed by peddlers. The American Tract Society was an interdenominational enterprise founded in 1825 based on endowments and financial contributions from wealthy sponsors.
96. “Footprints on the sands of time” is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “A Psalm of Life” (1838).
97. Ellen Strong (1860–1903), Presbyterian missionary to Korea from 1892–1901), teaching at Jeongdong Girls’ School, which later became Chungshin Girls’ School.
98. See 1893, n. 14.
99. John Bernard Busteed (1869–1901), Methodist Episcopal Church, first came to Korea on the invitation of Dr. William Scranton in 1893 and was now returning with his new bride Georgenia Spears.
100. Cecilia May Frey (1861–1926), WFMS, China, retired in 1894.
101. See 1893, n. 14, and 1894, n. 29.
102. 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 1918–1928 and continued to live in Korea well after retirement but was forced out by the Japanese in 1936 for not requiring Christian students to participate in ceremonies at a newly erected Shinto shrine.
103. Dr. Rosetta Sherwood (see 1893, n. 14) had met her future husband, the Canadian missionary, Dr. William James Hall (see 1893, n. 14, and 1894, n. 29), before being sent out to Korea. The two were engaged, and Dr. Hall came to Korea, where the two were married in 1892. The Halls pioneered medical missionary work in Pyeong Yang in 1894 where they also opened a school and a church. Dr. Rosetta Hall returned to America after her husband’s death in 1894 but came back with her two children to serve in Korea in 1897. Dr. Hall devoted 43 years of her life to missionary work in Korea.
104. The son is Sherwood Hall (1893–1991) who would grow up to be a doctor and a medical missionary to Korea in his own right. His sister Edith, born in America, would return to Korea with her mother and brother in 1897 but soon died of whooping cough and pneumonia in 1898 in Pyeong Yang where her mother had resumed work begun by her father before his death. Rosetta Sherwood Hall raised funds while in America for a hospital in Pyeong Yang to commemorate her husband’s work. She also opened a women’s hospital and schools for the blind and deaf.
105. This is the first mention of Frey’s long struggle with malaria.
106. The Bellefontaine Republican published in her hometown of Bellefontaine.
107. Robert Colton (1845–1918), older brother of Joseph Colton, married Gail Jackson, 26 years his junior.
108. Page 301 →Frey’s good friend, Mary, married to the much older Joseph Colton, had recently given birth to a son.
109. Esther Pak, née Kim Jeomdong (1877–1910), one of the earliest Ewha students, became the first Korean woman to receive her MD and become a doctor. She served as translator and assistant to Dr. Rosetta 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. Pak died in America where he labored as a farmhand to support his wife. Esther graduated from Baltimore Women’s Medical College and returned to Korea as a WFMS missionary alongside Dr. Rosetta Hall, with whom she continued to serve until her death in 1910.
110. Former student and teacher at Ewha, Yeo Meryae (see 1894, n. 34) had married Hwang Hyeonmo in 1892. He died soon after his arrival in America.
111. Lena Colton, Georgia’s best friend, was niece to the newly married Robert Colton.
112. Nettie’s oldest daughter Martha might have been sent to her paternal grandmother due to her mother’s illness.
113. Town in Ohio where Frey was born and where her grandparents on her mother’s side and their family lived.
114. A woman’s tailored blouse, buttoned down the front, short for “shirtwaist.”
115. The Baldwin Dispensary and Chapel, established by the East Gate in 1892.
116. Frey’s mother was a Presbyterian while she herself and her father were Methodist.
117. Hwangma, natural linen made from jute.
118. The 10th wedding anniversary, also known as the tin anniversary, symbolizing resilience and inability to rust (see 1893, n. 4, for Appenzellers).
119. Wife of Homer B. Hulbert (see 1893, n. 3, and 1894, n. 32).

1895

1. Bishop William X. Ninde is said to have met the king during this visit.
2. Isabella Bird Bishop (see 1893, n. 29) first published a book on Japan in 1880 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.
3. See 1894, n. 56.
4. Daehan for “Great Cold” referring to the last of the 24 seasonal subdivisions in the Korean almanac falls roughly on the 20th of January in the Gregorian calendar.
5. The new building would be called Scranton Home.
6. 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 with donations from Louis Severance of New York in 1904.
7. Her father had a variegated career including a stint as a detective.
8. Page 302 →The Korean Repository, a monthly journal published by the Trilingual Press (see 1893, n. 3), first established in 1892, suspended 1893–94, resuming 1895–98. The Korean Repository was the first English-language publication in Korea, covering missionary topics but also Korean language, history, culture, and current affairs. Trilingual Press also launched Tongnip Sinmun (The Independent), the first Korean language daily, in 1896.
9. Edward C. Pauling (1864–1960), Northern Baptist missionary to Korea who married his fiancée Mabel Valentine Hall (1870–1909) in Yokohama in February 1895.
10. A letter from Yukiye, the Japanese woman described as the Hulberts’ servant, who was going to be dropped off in Japan to become a teacher, in the very first letter written on the steamer China, September 27,1893 (see 1893, n. 4).
11. Early peace envoys from China were ordered to return to China via Nagasaki for failing to provide proper accreditation to conduct peace talks.
12. Aunt Lucinda (Cin) Barr in St. Joseph, Missouri, and Aunt Caroline (Cal) B. Craig, in Sidney, Ohio.
13. Reference to Chungdong (Jeongdong) First Methodist Church in the Jeongdong District, where the foreigners including the WFMS missionaries had settled. Work began in August 1895, and the church was completed in 1897. It is the oldest Protestant church building in Korea and the only one surviving from the nineteenth century.
14. Letter from son of Bishop Ninde who had been accommodated at Ewha during their visit to Korea.
15. Steward’s Hotel established by a Chinese merchant in 1888, originally called Sea View Hotel.
16. Former name for Memorial Day, first observed on May 30, 1868.
17. Li Hongzhang (1823–1901), Marquess Suyi, statesman, general, and diplomat of China known for favoring modernization and success against the Taiping Rebellion. Heading the only modernized Chinese forces, Li led China’s war efforts in the Sino-Japanese War. Widely known in the West Li received the title of Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1896.
18. The early missionaries strongly supported the movement for prohibition of alcohol in the United States, a cause very dear to Frey as to many Methodist women of the time.
19. Isabella Bird Bishop, still on her travels in Korea.
20. Irvin A. Correll (1851–1926) and Kate Josephine Fulkerson (1867–1903), wife of Reverend Epperson R. Fulkerson (1859–1940), Methodist Episcopal Church, Japan.
21. Official publication of WFMS established in the same year as the founding of WFMS in 1869. It was renamed Woman’s Missionary Friend in 1896 and continued to be published until 1940.
22. Popular U.S fashion journal publishing short stories and articles on social issues as well as dress patterns.
23. Building and loan associations became a popular financial institution starting in the 1830s. They operated as cooperatives, and shareholders could put in monthly Page 303 →installments for a later payoff as well as borrow sums against their savings. Frey and her mother relied on a loan to finance family expenses after the father’s death in 1900.
24. William Arthur Noble (1866–1945), Methodist Episcopal Church, served in Korea with his wife Martha Lillian “Mattie” Noble from 1892–1934. They briefly returned to America due to health issues. Their eldest daughter Ruth Emily would marry the oldest son of Henry Appenzeller, Henry Dodge Appenzeller (1889–1953), becoming second-generation missionaries to Korea.
25. Spanish or Mexican silver peso, also known as the silver dollar, marked with what is now known as the US dollar sign. Minted from silver in the Spanish Empire, it was the currency upon which the US dollar was established and was legal tender in the United States until 1857. Widely used as international currency including in the Far East, peso was the term for this currency in Spanish colonies. The coin was devalued in 1873 due to its reduced silver content, and the world’s currencies shifted to the gold standard.
26. Dickinsons were the family of Nettie’s husband, Frank. The Howenstines’ daughter, Ella Jenice, was born in the same year as Lulu Frey, 1868.
27. Transliteration of gugyeong for sightseeing or enjoying the sight.
28. Chautauqua was a popular movement that drew large numbers who gathered for summer sessions to worship, study, and enjoy. First founded by Methodists in 1874 on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in New York State, the “Chautauqua Assembly” educated Sunday school teachers and held public lectures, revivals, and cultural and musical performances. The outdoor format spread to other locations, and independent Chautauquas as well as “circuit” Chautauquas took root around the country. Lakeside Chautauqua on the shores of Lake Erie in northwest Ohio was most probably the Frey family’s destination.
29. The Bellefontaine Republican.
30. Records show that a woman, Margaret Chalfant, a Republican, was elected school board member for Bellefontaine in 1895 by the largest margin in history. Women were allowed to vote for school board members for the first time in Ohio in this year (Zeeland Expositor, April 5, 1895).
31. A school photograph from 1895 shows 44 students along with Lulu Frey and Josephine Paine (see figure 2, p. 21).
32. The Treaty of Shimonoseki ending the first Sino-Japanese War was signed on April 17, 1895. China was forced to recognize Korean independence and cede the Liadong Peninsula, Taiwan, and the Penghu Islands to Japan.
33. Reference to the Spanish dollar or peso pegged on silver (see 1893, n. 20, and 1895, n. 25).
34. Lee Jun-yong, was arrested for attempting to take over the throne with the support of his grandfather, Daewongun (see next note).
35. Heungseon Daewongun (“prince of the great court”) (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 acceded to the throne in 1864 when Page 304 →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 isolation policy that maintained Korea as the “hermit kingdom.”
36. King Gojong (1852–1919), Yi Myeongbok, ruled from 1864–1907. He declared himself first emperor of the Korean Empire in 1897. Gojong reversed many of the policies of his father, the Daewongun, after the regency was abolished in 1866. His consort, Queen Min, whom he had married in the same year was a powerful rival to her father-in-law. Gojong officially assumed direct rule in 1873, and Queen Min filled many of the senior court positions with her relatives of the Min clan. With her support Gojong engaged in policies that sought to modernize the nation and open it to the world. Gojong lost sovereignty in 1905 after the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War when Korea was forced to sign the Protectorate Treaty (Eulsa Treaty) with Japan. Gojong was forced to abdicate by the Japanese in 1907, and Korea became a formal colony of Japan after annexation in 1910.
37. Korea was featured many times in Harper’s Weekly in this period.
38. Romanized now as Fuzhou.
39. Relations were strained between her family and that of Aunt Anna whose mother, Mary Abbot Kelsey (1819–95), was the second wife of her grandfather Guy Carollton Kelsey (1833–1905). Frey’s mother Emma was born to his first wife who had passed away in 1845. The Kelsey family, based in Sidney, seemed to have been financially much better off than the Freys.
40. William John McKenzie (see 1894, n. 88) shot himself in his pain during a bout of delirious illness in 1895. McKenzie was known to have assimilated to the Korean lifestyle, and many missionaries were suspicious that he had gone mad for having “gone native.” McKenzie left behind an impressive legacy in Sorae where he started a church.
41. Perhaps No Susan, a former student among a group of girls trained by Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall as assistants for medical work.
42. Wife of the lieutenant governor of Ohio, William V. Marquis (1828–99) of Logan County, Ohio.
43. She heads her letter with “Belle” crossed out for “Bellefontaine,” her hometown. She also crosses out “J” for “July” to write “Aug.”
44. Frey’s maternal grandfather Guy Carrollton Kelsey (1804–93) had been born to Pierson Kelsey (1768–23) and Lucinda Ames (1770–62) of Rutland, Vermont.
45. John Morgan Walden (1834–1914), Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected bishop in 1884 and traveled around the world inspecting missions.
46. There are two Lucys in the 1895 photograph. One must be the Lucy Brewster, mentioned in the letter of December 17, 1894. Lucy Alderman, No Lucy, later taught at the Day School at Sangdong Church.
47. Student number 38 from the 1895 photo.
48. Mary Roilla Hillman (1870–1928), friend from Ohio Wesleyan who would come Page 305 →out to join the WFMS mission in Korea in 1900. “Mame” seems to have been a familiar nickname for Mary as she is always referred to by this name in Frey’s letters.
49. Chungdong First Methodist Church was completed in 1897.
50. The business in San Francisco that shipped out orders to the Far East.
51. Yeo Meryae, m. Hwang (see 1894, nn. 34 and 110).
52. Area near the post office in Jingogae (Chingo-ki), today Chungmu-ro.
53. Also known as the Spanish or silver dollar (see 1893, n. 20, and 1895, n. 25).
54. Clara, number 12 in a school photograph from 1893.
55. Extra “l” crossed out. The Scrantons and Appenzellers as well as Horace G. Underwood of the Presbyterian Church, North had arrived in 1885.
56. Dr. Annie J. Ellers (1860–1938), Presbyterian Board, arrived in Korea along with Homer Hulbert and her future husband Dalziel A. Bunker (1853–1932) in 1886. Bunker taught at the Royal College and later Paichai Hakdang (School), while Ellers began medical work with Horace N. Allen and served as personal physician to Queen Min. The two married in 1887.
57. Frey would return home for her third furlough via Europe in 1912. She and her party, which included the Scranton family, just missed the Titanic they were scheduled to board because of the late arrival of Frey’s luggage.
58. Frey had spent a brief period as a dressmaker to earn her tuition to go to college to become a missionary.
59. An herbal medication used as a laxative.
60. Tianjin, China, port city southeast of Beijing, became a major center for US traders for woven carpets at the turn of the century.
61. Dr. Horace Allen became a US diplomat in 1890, serving as secretary at the American legation and was promoted to minister and consul general in 1897.
62. Queen Min was murdered by the Japanese on October 8, just a few days before Frey began this letter. The Japanese victory and the end of the Sino-Japanese War in April had resulted in the formal ending of Korea’s tributary relationship to Qing China. Japan sought to further strengthen its hand by instigating a series of reforms. Wary of interference, Queen Min promoted a pro-Russia policy to mitigate Japanese influence. The resentful Japanese brutally assassinated the queen and burned her body to hide the crime. Daewongun, the queen’s father-in-law, allied himself with the Japanese and forcibly took possession of the palace on October 10. The assassination of the queen was reported around the world, and the event garnered strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Missionaries took turns guarding the king at the palace before he managed to secretly escape in February 1896 and seek protection in the Russian legation for just over a year. Upon emerging from this self-imposed exile, King Gojong declared himself emperor of the Daehan Jeguk (empire of Korea) in 1897 and elevated the title of his deceased wife to Empress Myeongseong. The king’s internal exile (known in Korea as Agwan Pacheon) and favoring of Russia and other Western nations eventually led to the Russo-Japanese war (1904–1905). Page 306 →Korea became a protectorate of the victorious Japanese in 1905 and was formally annexed as a colony in 1910.
63. Celebrating the first 10 years since the arrival of the American missionaries in 1885.
64. Bishop Eugene Russel Hendrix (1847–1927), Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Hendrix had been visiting China and arrived in Korea the very week the queen was murdered. Despite the tumultuous events, Hendrix received an invitation for an audience with the king, who requested more missionaries to be sent to Korea.
65. Frey is referring here to the theological difference between Calvinist belief in predestination (Presbyterian) as opposed to the Arminian belief in free will (Methodist) in the matter of Christian salvation.
66. Yun Tchi-ho (Yun Chi-ho) (1865–1945), along with Seo Jae-pil (Philip Jaisohn) (1864–1951), 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.
67. Yun’s Chinese wife, Ma Ai-bang (1871–1905), was educated at a school run by Southern Methodists in Shanghai. Yoon first converted to Christianity while studying at the Anglo-Chinese College in Shanghai, also run by Southern Methodist missionaries. Yun believed strongly in Christianity as a vital force for modernization in Korea.
68. Yun first attended Vanderbilt University in Tennessee before going to Emory University in Georgia. The two schools are somehow conflated in this sentence.
69. 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.
70. The annual ritual of preparing kimchi for the year took place in early winter, and the school held an annual “kimtchie break” in which students took part in making kimchi.
71. Hulbert, Underwood, Appenzeller, and Dr. Avison took turns guarding the bedchamber of the king after the death of the queen. They also prepared his food as the king was fearful of being poisoned.
72. There seems to have been a legal dispute about the grandfather’s will upon the death of his second wife, “Grandma,” who was mother to Anna and stepmother to Frey’s mother Emily.
73. Helen Dickinson (1890–1975), Nettie’s youngest child.
74. From the hymn “Some Sweet Day When Life is Over.”
75. Frey seems to have asked her friend Mary Miller, who had married the wealthy and much older Joseph Colton, father of Georgia’s friend Lena, for a donation for the building of the new church and was waiting for a “Colton cheque” (August 9, 1895).
76. Smith Cash Store in San Francisco.
77. Gu-gyeong meaning “having a look or sight-seeing.”
78. Dr. Mary E. Carleton, WFMS, medical doctor sent to China, seems not to have been transferred to Korea.
79. Page 307 →Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province.
80. Dr. John Bernard Busteed and his newly married wife Georgenia worked with Dr. Scranton at the hospital in Sangdong near the South Gate.

1896

1. The order issued by the pro-Japanese cabinet of Kim Hong-jip (1842–96) for men to cut their topknots took effect on December 30, 1895, as a symbolic move toward modernization. This was a traumatic order for Korean men for whom the topknot (sangtu) was a symbol of adult manhood. King Gojong was one of the first to have his topknot sheared on December 30 to set an example. The order gave rise to great social unrest as men were forcibly subjected to having their topknots removed by scissors or swords.
2. Frederick S. Miller (1866–1937) of the Presbyterian mission arrived in Korea with his wife Anna Reinecke Miller in 1892. He taught at a Christian school in Jeongdong founded first as an orphanage by Underwood and became principal when Samuel. A. Moffett was transferred north to Pyeong Yang. This school was the earliest incarnation of Gyeongsin (Kyungshin) School, which later became Yonsei University.
3. Nettie’s children.
4. A philosophical system founded on the writings of Helena Blavatsky drawing on a combination of Western and Eastern thought that gained hold in the United States in this period.
5. Hiram Golf’s Religion: Or the Shoemaker by the Grace of God (1893), by George H. Hepworth.
6. Mary’s husband, Joseph Colton, referred to as Mr. C. below, was a wealthy businessperson, owner of the largest flour milling company in Ohio.
7. Misspelling of enceinte, obliquely referring to pregnancy.
8. Nambawi, traditional Korean hat.
9. The wife of George Heber Jones at Jemulpo.
10. Nettie’s oldest child.
11. This sentence crossed out in another ink or pencil, probably by her father before he sent it off for publication. Frey’s admiration for the “progressive” Japanese is diminished after Eulmi Sabyeon, the murder of Queen Min in 1895.
12. Corrected to “were” again by another hand in blue, just as the “I think” at the end of the previous sentence was emended by being moved to the beginning of the sentence.
13. King Gojong’s escape and exile at the Russian legation, known as Agwan Pacheon, resulted in a temporary decline of Japanese influence and Russian ascendance.
14. Prime Minister Kim Hong-jip attempted to meet the king at the Russian legation but was killed in the streets by the angry public. The new government divided his corpse into eight parts and sent them to every province of Joseon to be exhibited as an example. Kim was an early supporter of reform, and a broader understanding of his political endeavors establishes him as a much more complex figure than a mere sellout to Japanese influence.
15. Page 308 →The words in brackets have also been crossed out. Frey’s father seems to have wanted to erase what could be deemed his daughter’s anti-Japanese sentiment.
16. The Japanese pronunciation (Gensan) of the northern city of Wonsan on the east coast where her friends the Swallens had begun mission work.
17. In 1889 the Methodist Episcopal Church passed a canon recognizing the ministry of deaconesses, who wore blue habits resembling the gowns of nuns and served in places of poverty.
18. Titus: A Comrade of the Cross, by Florence Morse Kingsley was a best-selling Christian fiction urging young people to become invested in the story of Jesus.
19. French term for “the flu” or “severe cold,” commonly used in the period.
20. Now archaic term for “flu,” from the French.
21. Yun Chi-ho accompanied the king’s special envoy Min Yeong-hwan to the coronation of Russian emperor Nicholas II. He spent time in Paris and Shanghai before returning to Korea in June 1897.
22. See 1895, n. 9.
23. Seo Jae-pil (1868–1951), the official spelling of his American name, was Philip Jaisohn. Seo 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-hyo, who sought to overturn the regime and introduce reforms. The coup ended in three days, and more than half his family was killed in the aftermath. Seo returned from exile in the United States with a medical degree and US citizenship 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), the first publication in the Korean phonetic hangeul, in the same year. The Independent promoted civil rights and suffrage. He was ordered to leave in 1898 when conservatives accused him of seeking to replace the monarchy with a republic. Exiled in America, Seo maintained close ties with Koreans seeking independence during Japanese rule and hosted Frey at his home in Pennsylvania during her last furlough (see last journal entry for 1919).
24. Heathen Woman’s Friend was renamed Woman’s Missionary Friend in 1896 and continued under this name until 1940. Frey’s contribution, “School Girls in Korea,” was published in February 1896.
25. “Samantha Allen” and “Josiah Allen’s wife” were pen names for Marietta Holley (1836–1926), a satirical writer who expressed feminist and temperance views in books such as Samantha at the Centennial (1876), Samantha at the World’s Fair (1893), and Josiah Allen on the Woman Question (1914). She was allied with reformers like Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard.
26. Aunt Caroline and Aunt Lucinda, her mother’s sisters.
27. The first use of official letterhead with the school emblem. The letterhead reads, “Ewa Hak Tang, Girls’ School of The W.F.M. Society.”
28. The troubled economic years under Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, led to the Page 309 →election of the Republican William McKinley in 1896, who campaigned for “the full dinner pail.” Ambassadors were appointed by the president then as now, and the newly appointed minister would be no other than Horace Newton Allen, the earliest Protestant missionary to arrive in Korea in 1884 with Robert Samuel Maclay (1824–1907), early Methodist missionary to China and Japan. Allen had already served as secretary at the US legation since 1890.

1898

1. Stephen Livingstone Baldwin (1835–1902) and Esther E. Baldwin (Mrs. S. L. Baldwin, her pen name) (1840–1910), early Methodist missionaries to Fouzhou and the first to request a female doctor to be sent to China. Mrs. Baldwin served as president of WFMS, New York branch, for two decades upon their return home.
2. The first mention of construction on the first Western-style school building, Main Hall, which was started in 1897, and would be completed in 1901 in Jeongdong. Frey played an important role in its design and execution, as the letters reveal. Electricity was provided in 1903, and Main Hall provided classrooms and dorms for up to 120 students, as well as housing for the missionaries, until it was destroyed during the Korean War. The site is still occupied by Ewha Girls’ High School.
3. An interdenominational social gospel magazine published in the 1890s and early twentieth century that advocated abstinence from alcohol and Christian values. Frank Beard (1842–1905) was the editor and illustrator.
4. The English shared Japan’s interest in checking the expansion of Russian influence in the region, leading to the official Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was established in 1902.
5. Helen, Grant, and Martha were her sister Nettie’s children.
6. Her father ran a hardware store in which Frey kept accounts for a summer to earn money for training to become a missionary.
7. Phenyl salicylate, produced by interaction of salicylic acid and phenol, was used as an antiseptic and to lower fever.
8. Used for fevers, primarily malaria.
9. The Empire of Korea (Daehanjeguk) was proclaimed in October 1897 by King Gojong, the newly created emperor, who had emerged from the Russian legation, where he had taken refuge after the murder of his queen. This move was made to assert independence from neighboring powers, strengthen the country, and set it on the path to modernization. The empire became a protectorate of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War (1904–195) and was abolished in 1910 through Japanese annexation.
10. Her friend Belle Allen, a missionary to Japan, had suffered a severe boat accident off the coast of Yokohama (see 1893, n. 12, and 1894, n. 83).
11. Separate annual reports published by the Korea Woman’s Conference were first instituted in 1899. Frey is referring here to annual reports of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Korea.
12. Page 310 →Paine went on her furlough in May of 1898 and returned in November the same year.
13. 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.
14. The parentheses in another ink were probably inserted by her father who edited this and other such letters of “public” interest to newspapers and journals interested in missionary news from foreign parts.
15. Yun Chi-ho worked alongside Seo Jae-pil to found the Independence Club (see 1895, n. 66, and 1896, n. 23).
16. Parentheses and following paragraph break inserted by different hand. The letter shows other marks of light editing.
17. Dongnipsinmun or the Independent (1896–99) was the first modern Korean newspaper published in Hangeul by Seo Jae-pil, Yun Chi-ho, and other members of the Independence Club. The newspaper was also issued in a shorter English edition.
18. Ma Ai-bang (1871–1905), a Chinese Christian woman educated at a Southern Baptist mission school in Shanghai (see 1895, n. 67).
19. Bogunyeogwan, the first Western hospital for women in Jeongdong operated by WFMS.
20. The six articles of the petition included: (1) officials must cut dependence on foreign aid while strengthening imperial power; (2) foreign loans and the hiring of foreign soldiers, etc. must be approved by the entire cabinet of ministers; (3) important offenders must be given a public trial; (4) the majority of the cabinet can veto the king’ choice of minister; (5) all public finances must be controlled by the Finance Department and made public; and (6) existing laws and regulations must be enforced without fear or favor.
21. The occupation of Geyongbokgung Palace on July 23, 1894, at the start of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95).
22. Go Yeong-geun, vice president of the Independence Club.
23. Psalm 91:5.

1900

1. First letter after Frey’s first furlough, February 1899–February 1900.
2. The Han River Railroad Bridge was completed on July 5, 1900, and the fully connected Gyeongin Line from Jemulpo to Gyeongseong (Seoul) Station opened on July 8.
3. Return from first furlough.
4. Mary W. Follwell (see 1893, n. 2), older sister of Dr. Lillian Harris (Baldwin Dispensary at the East Gate), had served as a 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.
5. This is a reference to the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) begun by Chinese peasants against foreigners, missionaries included, fearing growing foreign influence, especially in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War. When the Eight Nation Alliance (America, Page 311 →Austro-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia) moved to lift the siege on diplomats, missionaries, and Christians in the diplomatic Legation Quarter in Beijing, the Empress Dowager Cixi issued an imperial decree declaring war on the invading foreigners. The alliance defeated the Imperial Chinese Army in August 1901.
6. Admiral Edward Hobart Seymour (1840–1929), commander of the British Navy’s China Station. This anecdote is especially ironic, because the admiral had been routed in his expedition to rescue the diplomatic legations in Beijing. His forces of 2,000 sailors from eight nations headed to Beijing by train, often stopping to repair tracks and fight off Boxer attacks. The Imperial Chinese Army decided to intervene on June 18, 1900. Seymour and his troops reportedly killed hundreds of Chinese but had to retreat back to the port of Tianjin due to a shortage of supplies and ammunition.
7. The Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, first sent missionaries to China in 1847.
8. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, one of the first American missionary organizations founded in 1810 with members from several denominations, had become a largely Congregationalist organization after 1870.
9. Her father would pass away on August 25, 1900, and this was her last letter addressed to him in the Ewha Archives. The next letter was written after Frey had received news of his passing, and she was very preoccupied by financial matters. An article in the Bellefontaine Republican dated August 28, 1900, reported that Captain John Frey of the Ninth Ohio Cavalry Regiment died of a heart attack at home on August 25. The paper also reported that his wife discovered his death shortly after he had complained of being tired and lay down.
10. Esther had gone to America with Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall after her husband’s death to receive a medical education (see 1894, n. 109).
11. This is a probable reference to Chinese merchant Steward who operated a provisions store for foreigners (see 1894, n. 66).
12. Charles David Morris (1869–1927), Methodist Episcopal Church, North. Morris arrived in Korea in 1900 and took up work in Pyeong Yang before moving to Yeongbyeon (1903) and later to Wonju (1917).
13. The Bellefontaine Republican of November 21, 1899, noted that Frey left home to return to Korea via New York and Europe.
14. Head of the Cincinnati Branch of WFMS (see 1894, n. 75).
15. Mary R. Hillman (1870–1928), WFMS, would arrive on December 31, 1900, along with Alice J. Hammond (m. Sharp) (1871–1972), WFMS, and Ethel M. Estey (1876–1929), WFMS.
16. Electricity would be brought into Main Hall at a special reduced rate in 1903.
17. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), American poet and philosopher.
18. A schoolroom desk and chair set with the desk attached to back of chair of student in front.
19. E. Marguerite Glenk, WFMS, China.
20. Page 312 →Sarah Ellen “Nellie” Pierce (1869–1944), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1897. She served at the school before joining Mrs. Scranton to help with her work at the Sangdong Church near the South Gate in 1899. Pierce married Hugh Miller (1872–1957), British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1904. Even after marriage, Mrs. Miller continued to teach music and direct the chorus at Ewha.
21. Moon Grace, student number 18 in photo from 1895, began teaching at Ewha in 1899.
22. Allen had been appointed minister by McKinley in his first term after defeating Grover Cleveland. McKinley had won by campaigning for “a full dinner pail” after the years of economic hardship under Cleveland.
23. William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic challenger to the Republican William McKinley, had been defeated as he had in the previous election of 1896. McKinley would be assassinated in 1901 and was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

1901

1. 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.
2. Elmer M. Cable (1875–1949) of the Methodist Episcopal Church 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 a minister in 1902.
3. Wilbur C. Swearer (1871–1916), Methodist Episcopal Church, Seoul. Swearer graduated from Drew Theological Seminary and arrived in Korea in 1898, where he served at the Sangdong Church and taught at Paichai Hakdang.
4. Jacob Robert Moose (1864–1928), Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
5. Ethel M. Estey (1876–1929), WFMS, would be sent up to Pyeong Yang, while Alice J. Hammond (1871–1972), WFMS, would serve primarily in Chungcheong Province after marrying Robert A. Sharp (1872–1906), Methodist Episcopal Church, whom she had met while training to become a missionary. She continued to serve in Korea after her husband’s death in 1908. She founded the 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.
6. Grant had died in New York in January 1899.
7. An all-purpose antiseptic ointment sometimes sold under that name. Perhaps it was a tub of Equiole her father had sent her and that was mentioned in the letter of January 24, 1898.
8. Presbyterian missionary, founder of Severance Hospital (see 1895, n. 6).
9. Delaware, Ohio, location of Ohio Wesleyan University that both had attended.
10. Female missionaries held Bible classes for Korean women for whom literacy as well as the Gospel became a powerful lure as well as the opportunity to socialize outside Page 313 →the strict confines of domestic life. Bible women trained in this way served as the most important vehicle for large-scale evangelization of Korean women.
11. William Franklin Sands (1874–1946), American diplomat who came to Korea in 1898 first as secretary, becoming an advisor to the king from 1900–1904. He received the Cross of the French Legion of Honor for protecting French missionaries in Jeju in 1901.
12. Traditional Japanese juggling, daikagura, employing a ball and two sticks, became famous at the end of the nineteenth century when the court juggler of the emperor traveled to the West.
13. Rothweiler was back in Ohio due to poor health and working on raising funds for mission work in Korea.
14. The property of the earliest Presbyterian missionaries was sold and became part of the Deoksugung Palace grounds.
15. Mrs. Scranton returned to America in July with her son due to her ill health but returned to Korea in 1904. The doctor’s wife is her daughter-in-law, who was in Switzerland for her children’s education.
16. Robert Sharp came out to Korea in 1903 and the two were wed at Ewha (see 1901, n. 5).
17. Popular best seller by Maurice Thompson published in 1900 and set in Vincennes during the American Revolutionary War.
18. There was a movement led by women to open a public library in Bellefontaine supported by the Bellefontaine Republican. This group faced a challenge from those against public funding for a public library.
19. The SS City of Rio de Janeiro mail steamer carried mail between San Francisco and ports in Asia from 1878 to February 22, 1901, when it struck rocks while attempting to pass through the Golden Gate in heavy fog and sank. Of the 200 passengers, 135 lost their lives.
20. The Bellefontaine Republican of January 22, 1901, lists Frey’s mother as receiving a pension as the “widow of the late Quartermaster John Frey.” The same paper states that “Miss Georgia Frey passed the city examination for teachers Friday, and received a certificate for one year. She will begin her duties in the North building next Monday.”
21. The cyclometer was a mechanical device attached to a bicycle wheel to measure distance traveled.
22. A tray used for serving food.
23. David W. Deshler (1872–1927), married to Hideno Honda (1872–1934), was a businessperson in Korea with strong connections to William McKinley, the US president, enabling him to give assistance to Allen in being appointed minister in 1897. Through Allen’s assistance Deshler would found the East-West Development Company to handle the first large-scale immigration of Korean laborers abroad to sugar plantations in Hawaii in 1902. His mother’s second husband was George K. Nash (1842–1904), Republican governor of Ohio (1900–1904).
24. WFMS missionary to Fukuoka, Japan.
25. Page 314 →Dr. E. Martin, WFMS, Tientsin, China.
26. See 1893, n. 2, and 1900, n. 4.
27. See 1901, n. 3.
28. The first Western child to be born in Korea, Alice Rebecca Appenzeller (1885–1950) would become the sixth president of Ewha in 1921. She never married.
29. Carry A. Nation (1846–1911), American temperance advocate famous for using a hatchet to demolish barrooms.
30. These were teacher training programs taking place during the summer break.
31. Miss M. Burnham, MD, American Presbyterian Mission, China.
32. Leonora M. Seeds (1861–1958), WFMS, arrived in Fukuoka in 1890. Her sister Mable Seeds, WFMS, was deployed to Fukuoka in 1902.

1902

1. “The saying, first used by Chaucer, is recorded from the late 14th century, and is originally of biblical origin (Luke 10:7),” The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
2. 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 (see 1893, n. 15) urgently seeking a head nurse for the WFMS mission hospital in Korea. Edmunds answered the call and joined Cutler and Rosetta Sherwood Hall (see 1893, n. 14; 1894, n. 103; and 1894, n. 104) when they returned to Korea on March 18, 1903. Edmunds opened Korea’s first training school for nurses in December of the same year.
3. Henrietta Perry Robbins (1871–1955), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1902 and began educational and evangelical work in Pyeong Yang. Robbins joined Estey in mission work throughout northern regions and taught and headed numerous Christian girls’ schools in the north.
4. Appenzeller had passed away on June 2, 1902, when the boat he was traveling on to go to Mokpo collided with another vessel and sank.
5. David Hastings Moore (1838–1915) was elected bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North in 1900. Moore served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and as first chancellor of the University of Denver. He was assigned bishop of China, Japan, and Korea in 1900 and visited Korea to preside over annual meetings four times between 1901 and 1904.
6. William Davis Reynolds (1867–1951) was one of the first seven members of the Southern Presbyterian Church to come to Korea. 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 completing the first full translation of the Bible into Korean. He later taught at Pyeong Yang Theological Seminary while also serving as pastor in a church in Jeonju, Jeolla Province.
7. A friend of Georgia’s.
8. Page 315 →Ha Ran-sa (1872–1919), née Kim see (introduction, n. 1).
9. Second son of King Gojong, Yi Kang (1877–1955) received the title of Prince Uihwa (Weihwa) in 1891. He was sent to America in 1899 for further studies and received the title of Ui Chin Wang (King Ui) in 1900. He too spent some time at Ohio Wesleyan.
10. Sunjong (1874–1926) would be crowned second and last emperor of Korea in 1907 when the Japanese forced his father to abdicate. His puppet rule lasted just three years until annexation by Japan in 1910.
11. The anthracite coal strike by miners in Pennsylvania was resolved in October by the direct intervention of Theodore Roosevelt who mediated between miners and mine owners.

1903

1. Alice Hammond was recently married to Robert Sharp (see 1901, n. 5, and 1901, n. 16).
2. 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.
3. School records show that all but two students paid tuition in 1903.
4. Charles David Morris (1900, n. 12), who worked in the Pyeong Yang area with William Arthur Noble (1895, n. 24), was married to Clara Louise Ogilvy (1881–1943), Presbyterian Board, North, teacher at the Pyeong Yang Foreign School, in September 1903.

1904

1. A letter received by Frey’s mother Emily, Aunt Emi, from Cousin Nannie writing to ask for a report on Frey’s work. Such reports were important to the many women’s associations nationwide supporting missionary work by women.
2. Excerpts from Frey’s letters of January 2 and 13 and February 12 and 16 were carried in the Bellefontaine Republican issue of March 22, 1904, under the title “Letters from Korea.”
3. An entirely fabricated story of a missionary’s daughter, Emily Brown, who had married Emperor Gojong. The story, first published in a local paper in Wisconsin in January 1903, was circulated widely and captured the imagination of Western audiences. The American consulate received numerous inquiries from women wanting to marry Korean nobility.
4. She seems unsure of the spelling of the game of charades.
5. The Russo-Japanese War broke out in February 1904 when Russia refused to acknowledge the Korean peninsula as a Japanese sphere of influence in exchange for Japanese recognition of Russian dominance in Manchuria. The war ended in September 1905 with the humiliating defeat of the Russians, and Korea became a Japanese protectorate. The defeat also led to revolutionary movements in Russia.
6. The Johantgen family owned a large ironworks company in Bellefontaine. Olaf Page 316 →Leister Johantgen (1880–1946), carriage maker and future president of the Building & Loan, married Georgia’s friend Lena May Colton on November 14, 1905. Lena Colton Johantgen sang at Frey’s funeral service held at Bellefontaine Methodist Church in March 1921.
7. Written by Mary Alsop King Waddington (1833–1948), American-born writer, married to William Henry Waddington (1826–94) who served as prime minister of France in 1879 and subsequently as a diplomat to several countries.
8. A novel written in 1902 by Alfred E. W. Mason (1865–1948) about a man accused of cowardice.
9. Probable reference to Florence Cull, a friend of Georgia’s who had given birth to her first daughter in November 1903.
10. Deo volente, Latin for “God willing.”
11. From the superstition that if the groundhog emerges on the second of February and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter.
12. Sarah Ellen “Nellie” Pierce had been teaching English and music at Ewha until she took over Mrs. Scranton’s work at Sangdong Church when she left on furlough in 1899. Pierce continued to teach music at Ewha and ran the Women’s Bible Training School. She married Hugh Miller (1872–1957) (see 1900, n. 20) on the condition that she could continue her missionary work.
13. Fire broke out at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago on December 30, 1903, killing 602 people.
14. Stephen Ambrose Beck (1866–1941) of the Methodist Episcopal Church arrived in Korea in 1899 to oversee the Trilingual Press established in 1888 within Paichai Hakdang. In 1900 the press published the entire New Testament translated into Korean.
15. Success magazine established in 1897 to promote “New Thought Philosophy,” including positive thinking, life skills, and discipline, merged in 1911 with the National Post. It continues to be published under this title today as a business magazine providing tips for personal and professional development.
16. Both written by Mary Alsop King Waddington.
17. Perhaps Guy Carlton Kelsey (1833–1905), oldest brother of mother Emily Kelsey Frey (1839–1913).
18. Philip Loring Gillett (1872–1938), International Committee of YMCA Seoul, and wife. 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.
19. Laura’s husband.
20. Present-day Lushun, Dalian, China. Port Arthur had been conceded to Russia in the aftermath of the tripartite negotiations after the end of the Sino-Japanese War.
21. A letter from Bishop Moore (1902, n. 5) was published in the Salida Record, March 25, 1904, with the title “Bishop Moore’s Vivid Description of the Great Naval Battle at Page 317 →Chemulpo.” He arrived on February 8 onboard a Russian vessel, one day before the surprise attack on the Russian vessels by Japanese warships in Chemulpo on February 9. The annual meeting had to be delayed as missionaries from the north could not attend.
22. The neighborhood near the post office that Frey describes as Chingo-ki (today Chungmu-ro) was called Honmachi by the Japanese. The population of Japanese in the area doubled after the Sino-Japanese War, increasing to over 10,000 after the Russo-Japanese War and reaching 34,400 by the time of annexation in 1910.
23. A gold-mining concession was granted by the king to an American firm in the Unsan district north of Pyeongyang with successful negotiations by Horace Allen. The concession was taken over by the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company (OCM) in 1900, which through introduction of modern mining technology became one of the foremost producers of gold in the world.
24. Minnie Leonori, an old friend and school teacher, was one of Frey’s regular correspondents. This is the first letter on letterhead with a photo of Main Hall at the center top.
25. All ships were requisitioned by the Japanese military during the Russo-Japanese War. Dr. Avison learned how to prepare vaccinations from this visit.
26. Owner and editor of the Bellefontaine Republican (see 1898, n. 13). 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.
27. Aunt Anna had passed away on July 2, 1901.
28. A former student named Emma opened a day school in Chemulpo and a girls’ school at Baek-cheon in 1910 (Ewha 80-nyeon sa, 84).
29. Jinnampo or modern-day Nampo, a major seaport close to Pyeong Yang.
30. Sherwood, son of Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall and her husband Dr. William James Hall, who had passed away in 1894 (see 1894, nn. 103 and 104). Sherwood was the first student at Pyeongyang Foreign School and grew 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.
31. Queen Hyojeong (1831–1904), consort of King Heonjong (1827–49), twenty-fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty.
32. Reverend Elmer M. Cable and wife (see 1901, n. 2).
33. Novel published in 1903 by Cyrus Townsend Bradley (1861–1920).
34. See 1904, n. 31.
35. Korietz, Russian gunboat sunk on February 9, 1904.
36. See 1904, n. 3.
37. See 1894, n. 28.
38. Page 318 →Published in the Bellefontaine Republican, June 3, 1904. This letter is not in the Ewha Archives.
39. Main Hall had electric lights installed for the first time in 1903.
40. The burned Hamnyeongjeon (formal residence of the king) would be rebuilt in the same year.
41. King Yeongchin, Yi Eun (1897–1970), seventh son of Gojong and the last crown prince of the Daehan Empire (1897–1910), was proclaimed heir to the throne in 1907 when the Japanese installed Sunjong on the throne. In 1920 Yeongchin was forced to marry Princess Masako (Yi Bangja) (1901–1989), a member of the Japanese royal family.
42. St. Joseph, popularly known as St. Jo, a city on Lake Michigan.
43. William Arthur A. Noble, Methodist Episcopal Church, North, Pyeong Yang (see 1895, n. 24).
44. See 1904, n. 18.
45. 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.
46. 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 the Yeondong School and at Saemoonan Church as well as an itinerant evangelist aiding Mrs. Lillias S. Horton Underwood (1851–1921).
47. Perhaps Dr. Joel Baker Ross (1871–1930) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
48. See 1901, n. 5, and 1903, n. 1.
49. See 1895, n. 63.
50. Illegible name.
51. Frey is able to go on her second furlough in 1905–1906. The next letter held by Ewha Archives is from 1907.

1907

1. Florence Le Sourd, the wife of the brother of Georgia’s husband Homer Williamson LeSourd (1875–1948). Georgia and Homer were married on July 12, 1905.
2. Sister-in-law of Mary Miller Colton, Frey’s close friend.
3. The 1907 Pyeong Yang Revival that began in January of that year marked a period of renewed spiritual fervor in the Korean church. Mass weeping and confession of sins swept churches as missionaries and Korean converts alike experienced what they described as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, reminding people of revivals in the time of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley (1703–91).
4. Jessie Bell Marker (1875–1957), WFMS, arrived in Korea in 1905. She served with Lulu Miller in the Incheon area and played an important role in the revival at the Naeri Church in March 1907. She was assigned to Ewha Haktang at the Annual Korea Woman’s Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in June 1907, where Frey was appointed Page 319 →principal, and served as acting principal during Frey’s absence during her third furlough in 1912. Marker continued her evangelical work after 1913.
5. Although she expresses a preference for evangelical work, Frey would become the fourth principal of Ewha Haktang in June of this year, succeeding Josephine Paine who was assigned to evangelical work in Incheon. Jessie Marker joined the school and helped Frey establish the curriculum on a formal, continuous course and also helped create a college division in 1910.
6. This is the meeting at which Frey would be assigned to head Ewha Haktang and continue her work at the Chungdong First Methodist Church.
7. Morris and his wife, the former Clara Ogilvy, had been reassigned from Pyeong Yang to Yeon Byeon in 1903 (see 1900, n. 12, and 1903, n. 4). Morris would be assigned district superintendent of Wonju in 1917. Clara Ogilvy Morris would continue their work even after her husband’s death in 1927, establishing the Morris Memorial Chapel at Chungju First Church in 1930.
8. Georgia was now married to Homer LeSourd, a physics teacher at Milton Academy and lived near Boston. A native of Bellefontaine, Homer was a physics teacher at Milton Academy after graduating from Harvard with a master’s degree in 1901.
9. For the Annual Report of the Korean Woman’s Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A separate Woman’s Conference of the MEC had been established in 1899 “to unite the members of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, the women of the General Missionary Society, and such Korean women as may be admitted, for the purpose of discussing methods of work, hearing reports of missionaries in charge of work, and planning for the work of bringing the Gospel of Christ to the women and children of Korea” (Annual Report for 1899, 7–8). Voting members had to have passed the first year’s studies in the Course of Study in the Korean Language.
10. Korea became a protectorate of Japan after Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) through the Eulsa Treaty of 1905. Emperor Gojong sent three secret emissaries to the second Hague Peace Convention in June 1907 to assert the invalidity of the treaty. The emissaries were not allowed to address the convention because of Japan’s argument that it had assumed sole responsibility for representing Korea since 1905. This event is now referred to as the Hague Secret Emissary Affair.
11. Yi (Lee) Wan-yong (1858–1926), the first of five ministers to sign the Eulsa Treaty and the most notorious pro-Japanese politician, was promoted to the post of prime minister. He played a key role in forcing the abdication of Gojong (July 19) and the coronation of his son Sunjong (July 20) after the failure of the commission to the Hague. Yi’s house was one of the houses burned down, as described here.
12. Frey is probably referring to the departure of her beloved friend and colleague Josephine Paine, who had left the school for evangelistic work in the Incheon area. They had shared living quarters ever since Frey’s arrival in 1893. Frey had just succeeded Paine as principal of Ewha Haktang. Paine passed away on September 4, 1909.
13. Ha Ran-sa (see introduction, n. 1, and 1902, n. 8).

Page 320 →1908

1. There is no year on the letter, but presumably 1908 as indicated by reference to commencement below.
2. Eleanor “Ella” Burpee (1879–1950) came as an independent nurse in 1908 and served the community of foreigners as well as at Bogunyeogwan under Edmunds and also at Severance Hospital. She was in Korea for only two years.
3. Georgia’s husband, Homer LeSourd. They must have been acquaintances in Boston as Burpee graduated from the nursing school at Deaconess Hospital.
4. The first commencement at Ewha was held on June 18,1908, with the graduation of the girls who had completed the four-year curriculum of the middle school.
5. To celebrate the first commencement of the middle school, the girls’ chorus sang “O, Italia” directed by Mrs. Miller (formerly Nellie Pierce), to the delight of the entire audience.
6. The Daily Christian Advocate, official journal of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church with daily transcripts of proceedings.
7. At the top of the page, left corner, in different ink: “Return to 324 Canton Ave. Milton, Mass.”
8. The massive new Daehan Hospital, later renamed Governor-General’s Hospital, was founded by the Japanese. The building with the clock tower still stands as the original part of Seoul National University Hospital.
9. British Salvation Army officers Robert Hoggard (1861–1935), Gerard W. Bonwick (1872–1954), and Albert Milton (1877–1937) arrived with their wives and the single female officer Edith M. Ward (1876–1952) in October 1908.
10. Frey published the first textbook for Ewha students on biology, health, and sanitation in Korean with Josephine Paine in 1899.

1909

1. She probably means May 30, still celebrated as Founder’s Day.
2. Ten students graduated from the school at this second graduation ceremony for the middle (high) school. The chorus sang “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah.
3. The last minister at the American legation listed is Edwin V. Morgan (1865–1934), who served from March to November 1905 when Korea became a protectorate after the Japanese victory over the Russians. The name “Summons” is barely legible.
4. Merriman Colbert Harris (1846–1921) became the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, bishop overseeing Korea and Japan in 1904.
5. Ernest Thomas Bethell (1872–1909) was a British journalist who arrived in Korea in 1904 to report on the Russo-Japanese War for the Daily Chronicle. Bethell strongly sympathized with the Koreans against Japanese oppression and founded the Daehan Maeil Sinbo (Korea Daily News) to publish Japanese abuses in English and Korean. The Japanese requested his prosecution, and the British Supreme Court for China and Corea sentenced Page 321 →him to three weeks of imprisonment in Shanghai in 1908. Bethell returned to Korea upon release and continued to fight for Korean independence until his death in 1909 and is buried at Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery. He was greatly beloved by the Korean people and given the Korean name Bae Seol.
6. Wilbur Swearer had returned to America due to ill health in 1907 and returned in April 1909. The Swearers were pioneers in evangelical work in Chungcheong Province where Gongju (Kong Ju) is located (see 1901, n. 3).
7. Georgia’s daughter Myra Fuller LeSourd (m. Bradley) was born May 13, 1909. Myra donated her aunt’s letters to Ewha in 1970.
8. This is where the letters we have to her family come to a close other than the long account of an itinerating mission trip of 1917 and the birthday letter of 1918. Frey’s mother would pass away in 1913. Georgia, the sole remaining recipient may have decided to preserve only this early collection. The silent years uncovered would have been some of Frey’s busiest and most difficult under Japanese colonization and her establishment of the College in 1910.

1917

1. Chungju, a city in northern Chungcheong Province. In 1909, the Presbyterians and the Methodists in Korea agreed to divide the peninsula for more effective evangelization. Gangwon Province and northern Chungcheong Province were Methodist districts. Presbyterians were in charge of districts farther south. This agreement would hold until the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945.
2. Mabu, for packhorse driver.
3. George M. Burdick (1878–1945), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, arrived in Korea in 1902 and was assigned to the Suwon District. He and fellow missionaries continuously held revivals in the countryside in Chungcheong Province. He would continue to be in charge of this district until he was transferred to Gangwon Province in 1918.
4. Song of Solomon 4:8, “Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon.”
5. Georgia’s third child, William, had been born.
6. Ttakhaera, literally meaning “how pitiful.”
7. Gongju, city in South Chungcheong Province, formerly capital of the Kingdom of Baekje.
8. Georgia must have been a member of the northeastern chapter of WMFS.

1918

1. This is Frey’s last letter from Korea. She would leave for her fourth furlough in 1919 and never return due to illness and death in 1921. Frey Hall, completed in 1923 on the site of the former Sontag Hotel adjacent to the school grounds, was named in her honor and was the first building dedicated exclusively to the college program she had founded in 1910.
2. Page 322 →The birthday when a person turns 60 (or beginning their 61st year) is called Hwangab and cause for great celebration for completing a full 60-year cycle of the lunar zodiac.
3. The only known copy of the photo which was hung in the library of Frey Hall was lost when the building burned down in 1975.

1919

1. The March First Independence Movement of 1919 marked an important concerted popular effort to overcome Japanese rule. Protesters were violently suppressed, and several Ewha students who participated were incarcerated, tortured, and even put to death. The iconic young female protester and martyr, Yu Gwan-sun (1902–1920), was an Ewha student.
2. 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 Independence 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.
3. Anna Bair Chaffin (1883–1977), WFMS, served in Korea from 1913–40 and from 1946–56. She first came as the wife of an independent missionary, Victor Duclos Chaffin (1881–1916), along 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 was active in teaching at the Union Methodist Woman’s Bible Training School and also taught at Ewha after returning to Korea in 1946. When her sister passed away of a brain tumor in the Cheonan area, Chaffin took over her missionary work and donated her sister’s inheritance to build the Cheonan Church.
4. The New York Theological Seminary (NYTS), founded in 1900 as the Bible Teacher’s College by Wilbert Webster White (1863–1944).
5. Marcella Shin, Shin Masuk (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.
6. Perhaps referring to the Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions where Frey herself had trained before coming to Korea. Founded in 1885 by Lucy Rider Meyer, the school merged with the Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois, eventually becoming the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
7. Georgia Charlotte Brownlee (1876–1970), WFMS, was recruited by Frey when Brownlee 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.
8. Page 323 →See 1896, n. 23.
9. Perhaps reference to Josephine P. Campbell (1853–1920), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who had first served in China before serving in Korea 1897–1920. Founder of Jonggyo Church (1900) and Baewha Girls’ School (1903).

1920

1. Syngman Rhee (1875–1965) was an independence activist and served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. 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 degree at Harvard and a PhD from Princeton in 1910. In 1919 he was appointed acting president for the provisional government in Shanghai.
2. Baptist Church in Boston with racially integrated congregation.
3. Melvin Ernest Trotter (1870–1940), founder of the Michigan City Rescue Mission and leading figure in American fundamentalism. Mel Trotter Ministries is still in operation today.
4. William Ashley “Billy” Sunday (1862–1935), baseball player and most famous American evangelist at the start of the twentieth century. Strong supporter of Prohibition and advocate of the Eighteenth Amendment (1920) prohibiting alcohol in the United States.
5. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” (KJV)
6. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (KJV)
7. “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (KJV)
8. A homeless shelter in Chicago. Mel Trotter was converted there as was Billy Sunday.
9. Induk Pahk (Bak In-deok) (1896–1980), a former student at Ewha and in the third graduating class of the college program in 1916. Pahk remained at Ewha as a teacher and was arrested for four months for participating in demonstrations of the March First Movement. She was rearrested in December 1919. Pahk’s memoir, September Monkey (1954), chronicles how Frey came to support her in her prison cell with food and bedding. 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.
10. The US Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment banning the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages on January 16, 1919. By the terms of the amendment, it went into effect one year later and was in effect 1920–33. The temperance movement had been spearheaded by evangelicals and in particular evangelical women.
11. Page 324 →The Treaty of Versailles was signed between Germany and most of the Allied powers on June 28, 1919, but the United States never ratified the Versailles Treaty and worked on a separate peace treaty with Germany ratified in November 1921.
12. Ohio Wesleyan University, Frey’s alma mater and important evangelical institution, where many early Korean Christians received their American degrees.
13. Edwin Holt Hughes (1866–1950), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, was elected in 1908.
14. Stephen Ambrose Beck served as Methodist missionary in Seoul 1899–1919 (see 1904, n. 14).
15. Village in Ontario County, New York, known for sulfur springs, became popular among evangelicals at the turn of the century as people believed that the mineral water and strong religious revival combined would work as a strong restorative. Work on the sanitorium was begun in 1892.
16. Tracy Cutler Barnhart (1892–1967), wife of Byron Pat Barnhart (1889–1942), YMCA, who 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.
17. Blanche Rose Bair, WFMS, sister of Anna Bair Chaffin, served in Korea from 1913 to 1938.
18. Eva Lillian 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.
19. 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. All four of his children from his first wife became second-generation missionaries to Korea. The eldest son Edward Adams (1895–1965) founded Keimyung Christian College in 1954.
20. Probable reference to James Henry Morris (1871–1942), who first came to Korea in 1899 to work on the construction of the Seoul tramway system under H. R. Bostwick. Morris stayed on well after completion of the tramway, operating his own business importing machinery and goods. He was such a helpful presence that there was a saying, “When in need, look for Morris,” popular amongst the missionaries.
21. Charles Scott Deming (1876–1938), Methodist Episcopal Church, North, came to Korea in 1905, serving first 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 Page 325 →important role in the couple’s work in the Harbin region after 1929 until they retired due to poor health in 1937.
22. “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” (KJV)

1921

1. Portland, Maine.
2. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee,” Psalm 56:3 (KJV).
3. “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage,” Joshua 1:5,6.

Appendix A

1. This letter, written to a Miss Conklin, explains Frey’s calling for a society leaflet on missionary lives, and is located in the file for Lulu E. Frey, General Commission on Archives and History, the United Methodist Church, Drew University.
2. The Heathen Woman’s Friend, a publication started by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society in the year of its founding, 1869.
3. Founder with her husband Shelley Rider of the Chicago Training School for City, Home and Foreign Missions in 1885.
4. Ezekiel 33:6, “But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand” (KJV).
5. See 1894, n. 92.
6. See 1894, n. 75.
7. Isabella Thoburn, first WFMS missionary deployed to India in 1869, founded the first women’s college in Asia at Lucknow in 1886. The Lucknow Women’s College was renamed Isabella Thoburn College in her honor after her death in 1901. She served as a teacher at the Chicago Training School during her furlough.
8. Location of Ohio Wesleyan University, founded in 1841 as a Methodist-related but nonsectarian institution. Many early Korean Christians were shepherded to this institution.
9. To the Chicago Training School for missionary training. The influence of Lucy Rider Meyer was formative.
10. Monnet Hall was the building that housed Ohio Wesleyan Female College (established 1853), which merged with Ohio Wesleyan University in 1877.
11. Emma Dryer organized the May Institute in 1883 to train young people for evangelism. Her encouragement led to the founding of the Moody Bible Institute in 1886.
12. See 1893, n. 16.
13. Dr. Emma F. Ernsberger, who served as medical missionary in Korea from 1899–1910 (see 1901, n. 1).
14. Page 326 →WFMS missionary who served from 1888–1943 at Foochow Girls’ Boarding School, established in 1859 by the Ladies’ China Missionary Society of Baltimore, before WFMS was organized.

Appendix B

1. Ora May Tuttle (1879–1924), WFMS, came to Korea in 1907 and taught younger students at Ewha Haktang. The reference to a wedding invitation is not clear as Tuttle never married. Perhaps this is code for some other event.
2. See 1919, n. 5.
3. Future president of Ewha (see 1893, n. 27, and 1901, n. 28). Alice Appenzeller was in New York and received her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1922.

Appendix C

1. Letter from Jeannette Walter (1885–1977), WFMS, a teacher at Ewha Haktang, who arrived in Korea in 1911. Walter taught English and physical education and served as interim president of Ewha from 1921–22 after Frey’s death, when Alice Appenzeller took over. This letter is a copy reproduced to be sent to donors and supporters of the school in America. In her autobiography, Aunt Jean (1970), Walters recounts bringing Yu Gwansun’s body back for proper burial to Ewha from the prison where she had died.
2. A small box passed around to collect offerings at church or Sunday school.
3. Hugh Heungwo Cynn (Shin Heung-wu) (1883–1959), principal of Paichai Hakdang, had studied at the University of Southern California and was a minister of the Methodist Church.
4. Helen Kim (Kim Hwal-lan), an Ewha student who graduated from the college program in 1918, taught at the school before going on to study at Ohio Wesleyan and receiving a PhD from Columbia University. She became seventh president of Ewha, succeeding Alice Appenzeller in 1939.
5. Hymn written by Lucy Rider Meyer, founder of the Chicago Training School, based on 2 Peter 3:9.
6. A chapter of this organization was started at Ewha in 1909 (see 1894, n. 40).
7. 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 1940. She became the first principal of Ewha Girls’ High School when the college was officially separated institutionally in 1925 from the high school as Ewha Women’s Professional School.
8. Georgia’s married name; she continued donating to the school.
9. Brownlee was personally recruited by Frey to open the first kindergarten in Korea (see 1919, n. 7).

Index

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Notes

Page 288 →Page 289 →Notes

Introduction

1893

1894

1895

1896

1898

1900

1901

1902

1903

1904

1907

Page 320 →1908

1909

1917

1918

1919

1920

1921

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

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