Abbie Goodrich Chapin RRC (April 2, 1868 – July 24, 1956) was an American missionary in China. In 1901 she became the first American decorated with the

Royal Red Cross The Royal Red Cross (RRC) is a military decoration awarded in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth for exceptional services in military nursing. Foundation The award was established on 27 April 1883 by Victoria of the Un ...

, for services rendered at Peking's International Hospital during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

Early life and education

Abbie Goodrich Chapin was born in Tongzhou, China, the daughter of Lyman Dwight Chapin and Clara Labaree Evans Chapin. Her parents were American missionaries in China; her father was an ordained minister, and her mother was a teacher. Her brothers Dwight and Edward were also a missionaries in China; both were ordained Presbyterian ministers. Chapin graduated from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in 1892 (her older sister Louise (Lula) graduated from USC the previous year).

Career

Under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Chapin taught at the Mary Morrill School for Women in

Paotingfu Baoding (), formerly known as Baozhou and Qingyuan, is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2010 census, Baoding City had 11,194,382 inhabitants out of which 2,176,857 lived in the b ...

, and at Tongzhou."Letter from Miss Abbie G. Chapin to Christian Endeavor Societies"
''Life and Light for Woman'' 24(September 1894): 422-424. Her work was funded in part by

Christian Endeavor The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was founded in Portland, Maine, in 1881 by Francis Edward Clark, as an interdenominational Christian youth society encouraging them to "work together to know God in Jesus Christ". Operating internat ...

societies. In 1900, she was in Beijing, and listed among "Foreigners Who Have Probably Been Slain" in a San Francisco newspaper, after she was captured in the

. She and the other missionaries in her group were confirmed alive about six weeks later. In 1901, she was one of four women decorated by

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

with the

, for services rendered at Beijing's international hospital, the first American so honored. She visited her siblings in the United States and spoke to American church groups in 1905, 1913, 1921, and in 1931 and 1932. In 1937, she was again in peril, as one of several Americans sheltering from Japanese bombings and caring for wounded soldiers at the Presbyterian Hospital in Paotingfu.

Personal life

Chapin worked and lived for most of her life with Mary E. Andrews (also seen as Mary E. Andrus), a fellow American teaching missionary. Andrews died at Paotingfu in 1936. Chapin died in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from ...

in 1956, aged 88 years.

References

External links

"Alice S. Browne Frame, Mary E. Andrus and Abbey G. Chapin, near their girls' school in Tung-chou, China"
, photograph in the

Viette Brown Sprague Viette Brown Sprague (February 12, 1846 – November 2, 1923) was an American teaching missionary in Kalgan, China. She described her experiences during the Boxer Rebellion in a published memoir. Early life Viette Isabel Brown was born in Ne ...

Papers, Mount Holyoke College. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chapin, Abbie Goodrich 1868 births 1956 deaths American Protestant missionaries University of Southern California alumni Members of the Royal Red Cross Protestant missionaries in China Female Christian missionaries Christian medical missionaries