Cora E. Simpson

Cora Eliza Simpson (February 13, 1880 – May 14, 1960) was an American nurse and nursing educator. She was a missionary in China from 1907 to 1945, and founded and ran the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing in Fuzhou. She was also a founder of the Nurses' Association of China.

Cora E. Simpson
Cora E. Simpson (center), with four Chinese women graduates of the Florence Nightingale Training School in Fuzhou, from a 1913 publication.
Born
Cora Eliza Simpson

February 13, 1880
Oberlin, Kansas
DiedMay 14, 1960(1960-05-14) (aged 80)
Chelsea, Michigan
NationalityAmerican
Occupationnurse, nursing educator, medical missionary
Notable work
A Joy Ride Through China for the N. A. C. (1926)

Early life

Cora Simpson was born near Oberlin, Kansas, the daughter of George Mathew Simpson and Rhoda Rosina Simpson.[1] She trained as a nurse at the Nebraska Deaconess Hospital in Omaha,[2] with further training in Chicago, and courses in public health nursing at Simmons College in Boston.[3]

Her youngest sister, Mabel Ellen Simpson, followed her into nursing and missionary work in Asia. Mabel Simpson spent thirteen years as a Methodist nurse in India before she married in 1939.[4]

Career

Simpson joined the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,[5] and was a missionary in China from 1907 until 1944.[6] She founded and ran the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing in Fuzhou.[7] and was superintendent at the Magaw Memorial Hospital and Nurses' Home.[8][9] "When I came to China I was told that China did not need and was not ready for nurses," she wrote in 1913. "After a day in the hospital and a few visits out into the homes, I decided there were few things that China did need as much as nurses."[10] In 1911, 1917-1918 and 1926-1927, she spent time on furlough, speaking about her work at churches and to other community groups.[11][12][13][14]

Simpson was a co-founder[3][15][16] and, later, general secretary of the Nurses' Association of China (N. A. C.).[17][18] She represented the association at international nursing conferences in Finland in 1925[19] and in France in 1933. She wrote about her early experiences in China in a memoir, A Joy Ride Through China for the N. A. C. (1926).[20] In 1947, she was named N. A. C.'s general secretary emeritus, in honor of her lifetime of service.[6]

Personal life

Simpson returned to the United States in 1945, and settled in Michigan.[21] She lectured about her time in China in her later years,[22] and died in 1960, in Chelsea, Michigan, aged 80 years. She is remembered by nursing historians as "a key contributor to modern nursing in China".[9]

References
  1. "Guide Rock". Omaha Daily Bee. November 21, 1907. p. 3. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Omaha, Neb". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 37: 45–46. July 1906.
  3. Sasaki, Motoe (2016-10-18). Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century. Cornell University Press. pp. 73–77. ISBN 9781501706813.
  4. "Methodist Mission Convention Opens". The Lincoln Star. October 13, 1933. p. 15. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Vautrin, Minnie (2008). Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing: Diaries and Correspondence, 1937-38. University of Illinois Press. pp. 253, note 11. ISBN 9780252033322.
  6. Hanink, Elizabeth. "Cora Simpson: Missionary Nurse in China". Working Nurse. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  7. Jamme, Anna C. (May 1923). "Nursing Education in China". The American Journal of Nursing. 23 (8): 666–675. doi:10.2307/3406837. JSTOR 3406837.
  8. Simpson, Cora E. (October 1923). "God Has Us On His Heart". Woman's Missionary Friend. p. 353–354. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  9. Yuhong, Jiang (2017-01-10). "Shaping modern nursing development in China before 1949". International Journal of Nursing Sciences. Development and Inheritance. 4 (1): 19–23. doi:10.1016/j.ijnss.2016.12.009. ISSN 2352-0132. PMC 6626073. PMID 31406712.
  10. Simpson, Cora E. (December 1913). "Does China Need Nurses?". The American Journal of Nursing. 14: 191–194.
  11. "Untitled news item". The Red Cloud Chief. May 11, 1911. p. 1. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Missionary". The Bedford Daily Democrat. April 11, 1917. p. 2. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Missionary Speaks". The South Bend Tribune. February 22, 1918. p. 16. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Nurses to Hear Noted Speakers at Conference". The Capital Times. October 2, 1926. p. 9. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. Watt, John (2004). "Breaking into Public Service: The Development of Nursing in Modern China, 1870-1949". Nursing History Review. 12: 69–71. doi:10.1891/1062-8061.12.1.67. ISBN 9780826114655. S2CID 28773716.
  16. Goodnow, Minnie (1916). Outlines of Nursing History. Saunders. pp. 258. Simpson nurses China.
  17. Grypma, Sonya (2008). Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947. UBC Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 9780774858212.
  18. Lin, Evelyn (January 1938). "Nursing in China". The American Journal of Nursing. 38 (1): 1–8. doi:10.2307/3413602. JSTOR 3413602.
  19. "Personal Mention". Woman's Missionary Friend. 38: 168. May 1924.
  20. Simpson, Cora E (1926). A joy ride through China for the N.A.C. Shanghai: Kwang Hsueh Pub. House. OCLC 34951971.
  21. "Miss Simpson Will Address Religion Rally". Detroit Free Press. April 21, 1945. p. 7. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. "Lecture on China". The Escanaba Daily Press. May 19, 1945. p. 9. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
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