Eleanor Ardel Vietti (November 5, 1927 – disappeared May 30, 1962) was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

. She worked at the

Buôn Ma Thuột Buôn Ma Thuột () (formerly Lac Giao) or sometimes Buôn Mê Thuột or Ban Mê Thuột, is the capital city of Đắk Lắk Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Its population was 420,000 in 2016, and grew to 502,170 by 2018. The c ...

leper colony where she was taken as a prisoner of war on May 30, 1962. She is currently the only American woman unaccounted for from the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

Biography

Vietti was born in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

and had a

twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...

sister, Teresa J. Vietti and a younger brother, Victor. Vietti and her sister were both interested in science and medicine early on. The family lived in Bogota, Colombia until she was around fourteen. Vietti then contracted a bad strep infection and had surgery in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. Because of her illness, she became more religious, but also was a year behind her twin sister in school. Vietti attended San Jacinto High School (Houston, Texas). After graduation, Vietti attended

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

and studied for a summer at Nyack Missionary College. Then she went to medical school at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

from 1950 to 1954. She interned at the South Shore Hospital in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and then did a year's

residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgrad ...

at the General Hospital of

Wichita Falls Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

, finishing in 1956. Vietti entered missionary work around 1957 and the next year, went to

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

. She worked in

at a

Christian and Missionary Alliance The Alliance World Fellowship is the international governing body of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (The Alliance, also C&MA and CMA). The Alliance is an evangelical Protestant denomination within the Higher Life movement of Christianity ...

leper colony. There was a high rate of

leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

among the Montagnard people and Vietti both treated those with leprosy and worked to prevent the disease. She made house calls to people in the villages. In 1961, her sister Teresa visited the leper colony.

Disappearance

In April 1962, Vietti came back to the United States and visited with her family in Houston and

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. She also took a course in cleft-palate repair in St. Louis. Her family wanted her to stay in the United States. The

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

also warned Vietti about returning to the leper colony. However, Vietti chose to return to Vietnam. On May 30, 1962, Vietti,

Archie E. Mitchell The Reverend Archie Emerson Mitchell (born May 1, 1918) was a minister with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). He was born in Franklin, Nebraska.

and Daniel A. Gerber were

kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...

by 12

Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

guerillas. Vietti's ankle was injured, so it was reported that she was not tied up by the soldiers and was

limp A limp is a type of asymmetric abnormality of the gait. Limping may be caused by pain, weakness, neuromuscular imbalance, or a skeletal deformity. The most common underlying cause of a painful limp is physical trauma; however, in the absen ...

ing. Vietti, Mitchell and Gerber were taken to the nurses' house, where the Viet Cong members lectured them, and also promised that Dr. Vietti would not be harmed. The three captives were taken away by car. The other nine Americans in the leper colony were left behind. It was suspected that she was taken in order to work in a Viet Cong hospital. A captured Viet Cong soldier told interrogators later in 1962 that Vietti was treating the Viet Cong wounded. It was believed that she was being moved from village to village and was still believed alive in 1965. A report of a white woman asking for a

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

in a village came through in 1967. In 1968, the Christian and Missionary Alliance announced at their General Council that Vietti and the other 2 missionaries captured were still alive. Reports of seeing Vietti and the other two missionaries among the Montagnard villages continued into the 1970s. However, by 1991, she was listed as "presumed dead" on the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action list.

Legacy

In 1998,

Maggie O'Kane Maggie O'Kane is an Irish journalist and documentary film maker. She has been most associated with ''The Guardian'' newspaper where she was a foreign correspondent who filed graphic stories from Sarajevo while it was under siege between 1992 and ...

reported about Vietti and her capture on a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

special called ''The Only Woman Left Behind''. In the show, she discussed Vietti's capture, aired memories of families and friends and speculated on what had happened to Vietti. In 2008,

Nyack College Alliance University (formerly Nyack College ()) is a private Christian college affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and located in New York, New York. Enrolling just over 1,000 students, the school is organized in three academic ...

honored her and other alumni who were lost in Vietnam, adding their names to a special stone bench on campus.

References

External links

Find a Grave memorial {{DEFAULTSORT:Vietti, Eleanor Ardel 1927 births
1960s missing person cases">1927 births">Find a Grave memorial {{DEFAULTSORT:Vietti, Eleanor Ardel 1927 births
1960s missing person cases 1962 in Vietnam American people of the Vietnam War American women in the Vietnam War American women physicians Members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance [ ategory:Missing person cases in Vietnam People declared dead in absentia] People from Fort Worth, Texas People from Houston Protestant missionaries in Vietnam Rice University alumni San Jacinto High School alumni University of Texas Medical Branch alumni Vietnam War prisoners of war

Biography

Disappearance

Legacy

See also

References

External links