WOMEN ASSOCIATED WITH ZION CHURCH

DR FLORENCE MURRAY, M.D., D.D., LLD.

Dr. Murray, internationally famous as a medical missionary in Korea, was born in Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia on February l6, I894, the daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. Robert Murray. The family moved to O'Leary where Mr. Murray was a minister in the Presbyterian Church. Alter attending school in O'Leary and Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, Dr. Murray graduated from Dalhousie University Medical College, Halifax in l9l9.

With the support of Zion Church, she went to Korea as a medical missionary under the board of Foreign Mission of the Presbyterian Church in l92l. After I925, her support was transferred to the Woman's Missionary Society (ED). in Korea, she succeeded Dr. Kate MacMillan as doctor in charge of Ham Heung Hospital. She trained Korean assistants, undertook special work with tuberculosis patients, took charge of the departments of obstetrics and gynaecology, and carried on public health work and church duties in the villages.

The Pearl Harbour episode of World War II brought about the internment of missionaries from the West. The two women missionaries in Ham Heung, Dr. Murray and Miss Beulah Bourns, R.N. were allowed to continue their work for a time. However, after deportation by the Japanese several months later, Dr. Murray assisted her brother who was a doctor in Halifax.

Her return to the Orient in I947, was alter North Korea had come under communist rule and was closed to missionaries. She taught in a Seoul University, South Korea and became head of the Pediatrics Department of Severance Hospital. With the commencement of the Korean War in I950. the Doctor escaped from the country on fifteen minutes notice, went by freighter to Japan and then to Canada where she stayed for a year.

On her second trip to Korea, finding that women were not permitted ashore, she worked on a Danish hospital ship "Jutlandia" for which she was later decorated by the King of Denmark. After permission to re—enter the country was given, she worked in Pusan, South Korea and did refugee work at the Australian Mission hospital and several other hospitals in the district. She and Miss Bourns then returned to Seoul and reopened the hospital under army authority with Dr. Murray assuming the position of superintendent.

On furlough in Canada in I956, Dr. Murray was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by Pine Hill Divinity Hall in Halifax, the only lay person to be so honored in the history of the seminary and the second woman to receive such a degree in Canada. in the same year she received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from her alma mater, Dalhousie University, Halifax.

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