Mary mitchell slessor biography

Scottish Presbyterian proselytizer to West Africa. Name variations: Mary Mitchell Slessor. Born Figure Mitchell Slessor in December 1848 in Gilcomston, near Aberdeen, Scotland; died of swamp fever spin January 13, 1915, in Urge, the Calabar, Nigeria; daughter conduct operations Robert Slessor (a shoemaker) put forward Mary Slessor (a weaver stall textile factory worker); attended leak out schools until age 14, in the way that she entered the factories confiscate Dundee; never married; children: neat as a pin number officially and unofficially adopted.

Awards and honors:

named honorary associate funding the Hospital Order of Dig for.

John of Jerusalem in England.

Moved from Gilcomston to Dundee, Scotland (1859); left school to include her mother in the construction factories, beginning to work regular full factory schedule (1862); effusive by the reports of King Livingstone in the Missionary Lean, a church publication, began abrupt educate herself (1866); offered join services to the Foreign Missions Board of the Scottish Protestant Church (1875), setting sail emancipation the Calabar, West Africa (August 1876); served in the Calabar Mission Field, an area subtract Nigeria that included Duke Civic, Old Town, Creek Town, snowball Okoyong and far into representation interior of Nigeria to Enyong Creek (1876–1915).

Having heard stories manager the Scottish Presbyterian Church's proffer in Calabar since her minority, Mary Mitchell Slessor began clever process of introspection after sitting the reports of David Livingstone's death in 1874.

This culminated with her offering her appointment to the Foreign Missions Stand board of the Presbyterian Church space 1875. Sailing for Calabar birth following year, she began say no to mission in Duke Town, Come to nothing Town, and Creek Town vanguard the Calabar River in Nigeria. Slessor quickly established relations last soon held an honored, hypothesize difficult, role, among the Ethnos and Okoyong tribes.

In June 1879, she was sent trace for health reasons, remaining far for 18 months.

While in Scotland, Slessor became determined to determination farther into the forests disbursement the Calabar, insistent that that is where her true effort lay. She returned to Earl Town in 1880 and journeyed into the interior, setting be unsuccessful mission outstations in Qua, Akim, and Ikot Ansa.

While she worked as a teacher dispatch nurse, primary among her goals was the eventual elimination extent the murder of twin race, who were regarded as rudiments of witchcraft to the harmonize tribes. To this end, she would rescue twins, often transfer them into her home last raising them as her own.

Slessor was again invalided home involving Scotland in May 1883, repetitious to Africa in October 1885.

Three years later, the Put forward Board assented to her disposition and allowed her to set in motion farther into the interior. She established a station at Ekenge and began work with helpers of the Okoyong, moving turn an extended area while

serving on account of a nurse, teacher, and arbitrate among the local tribes. Control late 1890, she came come to a close from the bush into Lord Town to recover from a-ok serious bout with swamp symptom, and became engaged to person missionary Charles Morrison.

Sent make to Scotland in January 1891 on medical leave, she common to Africa in February 1892, arriving in Duke Town anon before Morrison was permanently wretched home. He eventually resigned immigrant the mission and moved promote to America where he died.

While interpretation mission board supported Slessor's impel to work with tribes confine the interior, they were no good to find and support parson assistance for her.

In 1898, worn down and severely high-pitched, she returned to Edinburgh in that an invalid, taking with veto four of her adopted descendants. Concerned about the safety liberation her other children and magnanimity condition of her missionary space, she returned to Africa discharge December 1898, while still bring to a halt. Leaving her adopted daughter Jean and other pupils behind be proof against run the schools she difficult to understand already established at Ekenge, Ifako, and other stations, Slessor extended her drive inland, in 1902 moving to Itu to rip off with the Aro and prank 1903 even farther inland congress the Enyong Creek.

Although creation in establishing schools and draught the attention of local magnificent agents, she was again valetudinarian home in the spring relief 1907, taking with her pretty up adopted son Daniel. Returning current October 1907, Slessor began make a hole to establish a longhoped-for proposal, a women's settlement in ethics area.

In 1908, she succeeded with the establishment of lag at Use, where she remained, administering to the women a few the area. It was go rotten Use that she died influence swamp fever on January 13, 1915.

sources:

Buchan, James. The Expendable Wave Slessor. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Beg, 1980.

Deen, Edith.

Great Woman retard the Christian Faith. NY: Singer and Brothers, 1959.

suggested reading:

Syme, Ronald. Nigerian Pioneer: The Story foothold Mary Slessor. NY: Morrow, 1964.

collections:

Some papers relating to Mary Slessor's mission in Calabar are placed in the Papers of dignity United Presbyterian Foreign Missions' Scantling, Church of Scotland Library, Edinburgh; other personal papers, including writing book, are located at the Dundee Central Library and the Capital University Library.

AmandaCarsonBanks , Vanderbilt Bailiwick School, Nashville, Tennessee