 | ||
The Scudders in India devoted more than 1,100 combined years to Christian medical mission service in South India by 42 members of at least five generations of the family.
Contents
First generation
He became convinced that he was called to be a missionary. He then became thoroughly committed to serving God through medical missions of the American Board, later of the Dutch Reformed Board.
Scudder went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1819 and founded the first Western Medical Mission in Asia at Panditeripo in Jaffna District. He served there for nineteen years in the dual capacity of clergyman and physician. He established a large hospital, of which he was physician in chief. He was especially successful in the treatment of cholera and yellow fever. He also founded several native schools and churches. He later became the first American medical missionary in India, beginning more than 1,100 combined years of missionary service there by 42 members of 4 generations of the family. He and his wife Harriet had six surviving sons and two daughters, all of whom became medical missionaries and worked in South India.
In 1836 John Scudder and Rev. Winslow started a mission at Madras to start a printing press to issue the Scriptures and tracts in the Tamil language. Scudder settled at Chintadrepettah (Chintadripet). He was in the United States in 1842-1846. In 1847, he returned to India, where he spent two years in Madurai providing medical aid. In 1849 Scudder returned to his mission in Madras, where he laboured till his death on January 13, 1855.,
He was an American missionary influenced in boyhood to go to India by the work of Rev. Dr. John Scudder, Sr. Scudder arrived at Madras on June 26, 1861. He was in charge of the large station of Periyakulam. He was admired by the Christians of the large village congregations of that station. An enthusiastic young American, his emotions overcame him when he arrived in Kodaikanal in 1862, as he recalled:
"I . . . seized our United States flag, shouted out 'Long may it wave!' . . . at the English collector . . . and did other uncouth things"
David Scudder drowned as a young man in the Vaigai River 19 November 1862 between Andipatti & Periyakulam, 20 months after arriving in Tamil Nadu. Interment was in the old Anglican Churchyard, at Kodikanal. The inscription on his headstone reads:
"D.C.S.
Missionary of the A.B.C.F.M.
In Southern India.
Born in Boston, U.S.A.
Oct. 27, 1835
Landed at Madras
June 26, 1861
Drowned in the Vaigai River
Nov. 19, 1862"
A little book, much worn and old, bearing the title: Letters to Sabbath School Children, by Rev. J. Scudder, M.D., Missionary at Madras, with: "Master David Scudder, from his affectionate friend, J. Scudder, New York, August 8, 1843", written broadly across the fly leaf, was found in his library.,
The Clancy and Scudder Scholarship founded with a legacy of $300, bequeathed by Mrs. Taylor of New York State to Mrs. Washburn, and transferred by Mrs. Washburn to the Pasumalai Institution. In January 1885 the Mission accepted it as the Clancy Scholarship. But it was not put on deposit until June of that year, when an additional sum of $400 in commemoration of David Coit Scudder from David's brother Horace E. Scudder was added to it. The two donations were deposited together as the "Clancy and Scudder Scholarship". It amounted to Rs. 1,500, and continued until 1906.
Second generation
He prepared various religious books and tracts in the Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu languages. His publications include "Liturgy of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church" (Madras, India, 1862); "The Bazaar Book, or the Vernacular Teacher's Companion" (1865); "Sweet Savors of Divine Truth," a catechism (1868) ; and "Spiritual Teaching" (1870). These are all in the Tamil language.
In 1856 Madurai united with the other American Tamil missions in appointing Henry Scudder as their representative to a convention held in Madras to adopt measures for the new Tamil Bible revision.
In 1864, his health failing in the climate of India, he returned to the United States and engaged in pastoral work for nearly 20 years. He was pastor of the Howard Presbyterian church in San Francisco, California, in 1865-'71, of the Central Congregational church in Brooklyn in 1872-'82, and from 1882 till 1887 of the Plymouth Congregational church, Chicago, from which he resigned to resume missionary work in Japan till 1889.
On March 17, 1866, Ranipet Hospital opened. Due to its high standard of practice, the Madras government closed the civil dispensary and "handed over its buildings ,furniture and stock in hand together with half the amount of money allowed to the dipensary", to Dr. Silas Scudder stipulating only that an annual report be submitted. At this time the dispensary and hospital were free to all and inpatients were provided with bedding, clothes and food as well as all treatment and medicines free of charge.
In 1872, Dr. John Scudder II took charge of the Ranipet Hospital and its evangelistic work from his elder brother Dr. Silas Downer Scudder because of the Arcot Mission's action. After thirteen years' labor for the American board, he returned to New York because of illness. He died in Brooklyn, New York, December 10, 1877.
Third generation
As a girl, her last idea was to spend her life in India, even though it might be the Scudder family tradition. As a child in India, she saw all too much famine, poverty and disease. After a Massachusetts seminary, Ida expected to get married and settle down in the U.S., but, in her early 20s, Ida Scudder went back to India to help her ailing mother at her mission bungalow at Tindivanam. Ida Scudder took her M.D. at Cornell University in 1899, then headed back to India, fortified with a $10,000 gift from a Manhattan banker. With the money, she started a tiny clinic for women at Vellore, 75 miles from Madras. In two years she treated 5,000 patients.
Ida S. Scudder realized that she would be foolish to go on alone in her fight to bring better health to South India's women. So she decided to open a medical school for girls. Skeptical males said she would be lucky to get three applicants; actually she had 151 the first year (1918), and has had to turn many away ever since. At first, the Reformed Church in America was the main backer of the Vellore school, but since Dr. Scudder agreed to make it coeducational it has the support of 40 missions. Of 242 students today, 95 are men.
In 1953 at a sprightly 82 years old, Dr. Scudder sat in her bungalow Hilltop at Kodaikanal, overlooking the Vellore Christian Medical College and its hospital, and opened a stack of letters and telegrams. Her name is a famous one in India. A letter once reached her addressed simply, "Dr. Ida, India." But the mail was heavier than usual because friends around the world were congratulating her on winning the Elizabeth Blackwell Citation of the New York Infirmary, as one of five outstanding women doctors of 1952. In 1960, she died at age 90, of a circulatory ailment, in Kodaikanal.,
A commemorative stamp was issued on August 12, 2000 as part of centenary celebrations of Christian Medical College, Vellore. The stamp's design depicts the college chapel, the motivating monument of the medical college and a hospital symbolising the ethos of the institution. The First-day cover portrays Dr Ida Scudder, who founded the institute in 1900, working for the medical requirements of pregnant women.
In 1930 she married Dr. William Wells Thoms. Together they went to Jerusalem in Palestine to study Arabic in preparation for RCA medical mission work in Arabia. This was the pre-petroleum era and their pioneering work was in societies very different from today. Beth and Wells served in Amarah Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait during the 1930s.
Most of their missionary career was spent in Muscat, Oman, where they went in 1939. Beth assisted Wells in his medical work by training laboratory assistants, organizing and dispensing medical supplies, keeping hospital accounts, meeting payroll, visiting the sick, teaching hospital staff and their families to read Arabic, and accompanying Wells on medical excursions into the Arabian peninsula to treat those unable to come to the hospital. Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children were treated - from Kings, Sultans, and Sheikhs to the least of the common people (Bedouin, farmers, and laborers). Beth and Wells retired to Stinson Lake, New Hampshire and Flint, Michigan in 1970.
Fourth generation
Her work in Africa began in 1970 when she was head of the eye department at a hospital in Mvuni, Tanzania. She returned to Minnesota in 1971 for further study, and in 1973 joined the eye department at a medical center in Moshi, Tanzania, where she became department head in 1979. According to a longtime friend, “She felt there was plenty of medical advice in the United States. She wanted to be where she was really of use.”
She was sponsored by a German group, the Christian Blind Mission International. The eye team took medical safaris by vehicle and small plane to 30 mission and government hospitals all over Tanzania. Scudder retired from surgery in 2001 and went to live and work with the Capuchin Sisters of Maua, on the western slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro near the village of Sanya Juu. She continued training nurses and holding eye clinics there.
Dr. Scudder received an Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology on Oct. 22, 2004, and the George Tani Humanitarian Service Award from the Minnesota Academy of Ophthalmology on Dec. 10, 2004. Hope College presented her with a Distinguished Alumni Award on May 7, 1988, and profiled her in a story in the August 1985 issue of news from Hope College that had previously been featured in the Kodaikanal International School’s alumni publication. She was diagnosed with primary amyloidosis in 2002. and died of that disease on Monday, May 16, 2005, in Dar es Salaam. She was buried May 21 at her home on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. She was 66 years old.
From 1940 to 1945, Dr. Galen Scudder was called for war service. He went to Rangoon and after the fall of Rangoon he was the District Medical Officer at Coimbatore. He generouisly gave part of his government salary to the Ranipet Hospital. In 1947, Dr. Galen Scudder returned from furlough and resumed charge of the hospital. He brought with him useful surgical equipment and also a large castle sterilizer. By 1953, Dr. Galen Scudder added a modern X-Ray machine (200 M.A), which was a gift of Dr. Galen Scudder's Princeton University classmates who contributed $5,000. plus $6,000. from the Doris Duke Foundation. A separate wing was added to the hospital building to house the X-Ray machine and laboratory and blood bank. Four new private wards on the male side were constructed at cost of Rs 18,700.
G. F. Scudder retired on June 1, 1954 after 35 years of distinguished service in the cause of the sick and the suffering. Both Dr. and Mrs. Scudder are great grandchildren of Dr. John Scudder (who came to India in 1819), the father of the three founders of the Arcot Mission whose centenary was celebrated early in 1954. With the departure of Dr. and Mrs. G.F. Scudder, a century's continued association of the great Scudder family with the Arcot Mission came to a close.