THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SERVICE FAMILY TO SUSTAINABLE HEALTH CARE IN SICHUAN Dr. Charles Winfield Service and Mrs. Robina (Morgan) Service were missionaries of the West China Mission located in Sichuan Province from 1902 to 1930. They served with both the Methodist Church of Canada and after church union in 1925, The United Church of Canada. Charlie was a surgeon and an ordained minister graduating from Victoria College in 1895 and Trinity Medical College of the University of Toronto in 1899. Robina received her nursing degree in 1899 from Brockville General Hospital. Author: Elizabeth Service Researcher: Francie Service (M.A., Global Affairs) (B.A., B.Ed.) Editor: John Service (PhD., Psychology) © Elizabeth Service, Ottawa, Canada, April 2021 INTRODUCTION This paper expands the research of the Service family narrative beyond its singular linear form to reflect the collective history of the West China Mission. Although the life stories of Charles Winfield Service, a surgeon, and Robina (Morgan) Service, a nurse, are the connecting thread weaving together the narrative, the paper actively links their stories to the collective actions of the numerous individuals and institutions associated with the mission from 1891 to 1952. The narrative is told through the lens of an international development story and focuses on the medical work of the missionary enterprise. One of Canada’s most eminent historians, William Morton, noted that “history is not an academic mystery, it’s what the community thinks about itself, how it sorts out ideas.”1 This paper is an attempt to sort out the ideas of a familial narrative within a larger collective history. The paper is constructed from an evidence-based approach and relies heavily on primary sources. Scientific biographers Héloïse Dufour and Sean Carroll, in their article Great myths die hard, provide a cautionary note to researchers that if “we are aware of the predisposition to embellish histories, that might discourage us from parroting them without solid evidence.”2 Familial stories can indicate a potential direction of discovery but often these apocryphal family anecdotes can inaccurately depict an individual’s contributions, and sometimes transition into unchallenged historical fact. This reinforces the importance of validating oral history, and the research utilized official church and university documents, period publications, professional journals, newspapers, family letters and photographs. Well-documented secondary sources, written by leading scholars, provided the interdisciplinary analysis to frame the narrative. When an embellished document, contradicting the evidential trail, was discovered on the internet or in print, additional primary sources were sought to ensure historical accuracy. The West China Mission, based in Sichuan, was the largest missionary operation in the world. It was a complex transnational project, influenced by a cross-sector of individuals and institutions, and each actor reflected their own patterns of social engagement.3 To understand the complexity of the sustainable health care project, the paper utilizes a collaborative partnership framework to recognize the collective impact of the diverse stakeholders committed to social change in clinical medicine and medical education.4 The expansion of the missionary enterprise from its church- based roots to its collective reach within the overall Canadian fabric, including health care, university, business and diplomatic stakeholders, is a relatively unexplored historical narrative. The paper introduces various individuals and institutions but acknowledges that expanded research, across multiple academic disciplines, is required to fully capture this significant period in Canadian and Chinese history. It should also be noted that the research was restricted to English language sources, and the overarching emphasis on Canadian stakeholders has 1 William Lewis Morton in A. Brian McKillop, “William Lewis Morton”, The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-lewis-morton. 2 Heloise Dufour and Sean Carroll, “Great myths die hard”, Nature, Vol. 502, No. 7469, (2013), 33. 3 Petra Kuenkel, “Leadership for sustainability: the art of engaging”, The Guardian, April 17, 2012, https://www. theguardian.com/sustainable-business/art-engaging-collaborative-leadership. 4 UN General Assembly, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, (#17.16), 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1, 27; Ronald A. Heifetz, John V. Kania and Mark R. Kramer, “Leading Boldly”, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, (Winter 2004), 20-31; John Kania and Mark Kramer, “Collective Impact”, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, (Winter 2011), 36-41. 1 contributed to a fundamental weakness in the paper. The inclusion of Chinese archival documents would produce a more balanced cross-cultural context for understanding this transnational relationship in sustainable health care delivery. ORIGINS OF MEDICAL MISSIONS Charlie and Robina Service were motivated by the belief that “the promotion of health promises to be the leading ideal of the twentieth century.”5 Their life story, as medical missionaries in China, began in 1902 in a mission station in Wuhu, a commercial river port on the Yangtze River.6 This one year posting focused on language training, and the mission was administered by Dr. Edgerton Hart, a well-known surgeon and the son of the first superintendent of the Canadian Methodist Mission (CMM).7 Superintendent Virgil Hart had managed numerous mission stations in central and western China, for the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church USA, and his experience building a large hospital and envisioning a university-based medical school in Nanjing would influence the direction of the CMM.8 Charlie learned about the work of the Hart family as a young child growing up in Athens, a small agricultural town in eastern Ontario, originally known as Farmersville.9 His father, Rev. William Service, was appointed to the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1877-1880, and Charlie would continue to live in eastern Ontario while attending high school in Athens and at the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, now known as Lisgar Collegiate.10 His final year of high school was spent at Albert College in Belleville, Ontario which was associated with Victoria College at the University of Toronto.11 Athens was also the childhood home of Miss Adeline Gilliland, and after marrying Dr. Virgil Hart in 1865, she spent more than three decades in China. Although her husband would be “remembered as the man who founded the mission in West China,” it was Mrs. Hart who convinced her husband to accept the position of superintendent of the CMM for the period 1891 to 1900.12 Adeline Hart was the first Canadian woman to live in China, and until her death in 1915, she would be an influential voice within missionary circles. Her son, Edgerton, would 5 Charles W. Service, “Public Health in China”, The Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 46, No. 5, (1919), 370. 6 C.W. Service, “Departmental Surveys - Medical Work”, in Our West China Mission, ed. F.C. Stephenson, (Toronto: The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church and The Young People’s Forward Movement, 1920), 378. 7 D. MacGillivray, A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807-1907), (Shanghai: The American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1907), 442. 8 Ibid., 443; Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, Seventieth Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church For the Year 1888, (New York: Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, 1888), 88. 9 Athens was originally called Farmersville until 1888. 10 “Ministers”, Athens (Farmersville) Episcopal Methodist Church-Yonge Township, Leeds County, Ontario, https://krassoc.wordpress.com/https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00085_19230726/8?r=0&s=32012/12/01/ athens-methodist-episcopal-church/; “Rev. Chas. W. Service Passed Away in China: Noted Missionary was Former OCI Student”, The Citizen, March 17, 1930, 17. 11 Charles Service graduated gold medalist from Albert College. 12 Neil Semple, The Lord’s Dominion: The History of Canadian Methodism, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1996), 323-326; The Globe, “A Missionary Hero Dies”, February 26, 1904, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail. 2 later reflect that “many of the institutions which he [his father] was instrumental in establishing, such as the famous hospital and college in Nanking, owe their first inspiration to her.”13 Another Athens resident, Dr. Leonora Howard King, arrived in China in 1877, and church records credit her with being “one of the first” Western trained doctors to establish “the system of medical missions.”14 Her work was located primarily in Tianjin and over her career, which spanned nearly half a century, she founded a hospital and the first medical school for women in all of China.15 King was the personal physician to Lady Li, the wife of Viceroy Li Hongzhang who was also her main benefactor, and this support legitimized the position of a female doctor.16 In recognition of her treatment of Chinese soldiers, during the 1894 war against Japan, the “young woman from Canada” was awarded the Imperial Order of the Double Dragon which was the first time a Western woman was given such a prestigious honour.17 King’s career was closely followed in Canada and in 1923, while on furlough, the Athens Reporter noted that “since coming here, Mrs. King has received a letter from the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. inviting her to visit his summer home in Massachusetts, and regretting that his official duties will 18 prevent him from making them a visit here in Canada.” King, who was the second foreign female doctor to serve in China, died in 1925 in Beidaihe, and she was recognized as “one of the most widely known and highly respected of lady missionaries in China.”19 The childhood church of Adeline (Gilliland) Hart and Leonora (Howard) King was the Farmersville Methodist Episcopal Church, and it is remarkable that two women, from this small rural community, would be destined to play such effectual roles in disseminating medical knowledge in China.