Caroline Wellwood

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Caroline Wellwood
Born1870s
Fordyce, Ontario, Canada
Died1947
Occupation(s)Nurse, nursing educator, missionary

Caroline Wellwood (1870s – 1947) was a Canadian nurse, nursing educator, and Christian missionary in China.

Early life[edit]

Caroline Wellwood was born in Fordyce, Ontario and raised in Wingham, Ontario, the daughter of William Wellwood and Christiana Rodgers Wellwood. She attended the National Training School for Nurses and Deaconesses at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1902.[1][2]

Career[edit]

Eight women, standing, all wearing nurses' white uniforms. The middle six women are young Chinese nursing students; the white woman on the left of them is tall with greying hair; the white woman on the right of them has dark hair and a plump body.
Caroline Wellwood, on the far left, with nursing students at Chengdu in 1916; her colleague Miss Smith is on the far right.

Wellwood was head nurse at a maternity hospital in Boston as a young woman.[3] She was assigned to the West China Mission (WCM) of the Canadian Methodist Woman's Missionary Society (WMS) in 1906, and arrived at Chengdu in 1907. She worked at an orphanage while learning Mandarin, then worked at a hospital dispensary. She became secretary treasurer of the West China Mission in 1909, and hospital superintendent. She and Anna Henry, a medical doctor, began working on building a new hospital.[1]

Wellwood was evacuated from Chengdu in 1911, and stayed in Canada until 1913,[4] lecturing and gathering supplies and funding for the hospital she hoped to build on her return. The Hospital for Women and Children at Chengdu offered sixty beds when it opened in 1915, with Wellwood as its superintendent of nursing.[5] She began a nurses' training program at the hospital,[6][7] and a built a residence for nurses and nursing students, and translated textbooks into Mandarin for her students' use.[8] She started a women's philanthropic club as an alternative to recreational gambling, for wealthy wives in Chengdu.[9] She wrote about her work for American publications,[10] and lectured again in Canada in 1921,[11] in 1927,[12] and in 1935.[13]

Wellwood continued working on the hospital and school programs until a fire destroyed the hospital in 1940.[14] She retired from the mission field in 1942.[1] She continued giving lectures to church and women's organizations until the year of her death in 1947.[15]

Personal life[edit]

Wellwood returned to Canada in 1942, and died in 1947, aged 73 years. The Wellwood Memorial Building at West China Union University was named in her memory, and a Wellwood scholarship for nursing education was established.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Beaton, Janet; McKay, Marion (1999-11-15). "Profile of a Leader: Caroline Wellwood". Nursing Leadership. 12 (4): 30–33. doi:10.12927/cjnl.1999.16314. PMID 11094942.
  2. ^ "Nurses and Deaconesses". Evening Star. 1902-05-27. p. 11. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Quillen, Robert (1927-05-19). "China Will Again Welcome Missionaries, Opinion of Miss Caroline Wellwood". Edmonton Journal. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Church News". Lansing State Journal. 1912-11-23. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Report of Hospital for Women and Children, United Church of Canada, Woman's Missionary Society" Report of the Chendu Hospitals Board for the year 1931, 24-27.
  6. ^ Strachan, E. S.; Ross, E. W. "The story of the years : a history of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, Canada, 1906-1916. Vol. III". pp. 226–228. Retrieved 2020-11-28.
  7. ^ "Woman Works Long in China". The Windsor Star. 1928-04-04. p. 36. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "In the Nursing World". Nursing World. 69: 174. August 1922.
  9. ^ "'Entering into Virtue Club'". The Missionary Review of the World. 48: 979. December 1925.
  10. ^ Wellwood, Caroline (June 1916). "China as Field for American Nurses". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 56: 351–353.
  11. ^ "Methodist W. M. S. Opens District Convention in Wesley Church at 2.30". Star-Phoenix. 1921-10-25. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Sorrows of China Close to Heart of Missionary Despite Cruel Hostility". Edmonton Journal. 1927-05-19. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Chinese Trip Recalled by Flying Missionary". The Windsor Star. 1935-10-28. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "United Church Hospital Razed by Flames at Chengtu, China". The Windsor Star. 1940-05-02. p. 15. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Missionary Will Address Methodists". The Gettysburg Times. 1947-04-08. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-11-28 – via Newspapers.com.

External links[edit]

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