Ailie Gale

Ailie May Spencer Gale (1878–1958) was an American physician. She served as a medical missionary in China under commission from the Methodist Episcopal Board of Missions from 1908 to 1950 alongside her husband Rev. Francis Gale, a religious missionary. Committed to a lifetime of unpaid social activism, Gale's work emphasized an approach to patient care that focused on preventative care and public health, humane treatment, and consideration for the whole patient, entailing concern for physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs. She also had evangelical motives and sought to promote the status of Chinese women.

Gale's years of service in China coincided with major political developments of the time, including the Chinese Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, Sino-American alliance during World War II, and implementation of a Communist government. The political and cultural climates created by these events had a great impact on Gale's work both in determining the needs she was to respond to and in influencing interactions between the Gales and the Chinese populations they served.

Gale kept active correspondence with her supporters back in the American home field. As a female surgeon in the twentieth century who wrote about her medical successes and spoke at public events, Gale broke into fields dominated by men in the twentieth century—medicine and public speaking—and gave credibility to women's capability for professionalism and leadership. Her readers were encouraged to consider women as active players in the international realm rather than solely restricted to the domestic sphere. At the same time, historians have noted Gale's role in uplifting upper-middle class white Protestant women at the expense of Chinese women, whose religious practices (or lack thereof) and non-Western medicine she considered inferior.

Gale returned to New York in 1950 and died in 1958 at the age of 79.

Background

Early life Ailie Gale was born in 1878 in Bozeman, Montana to Moses Harrison Spencer, a Methodist circuit rider and dentist, and Elizabeth Spencer. She had one brother, John Spencer. Her upbringing was shaped by her father's fundamentalist beliefs, which allowed for no dissent and no fun. Rather, education and religious piety were highly emphasized.

Education Gale began attending Colorado College at age 20 while working as a housekeeper and cook in order to financially support herself. Despite the death of her parents and increasing financial hardship after graduation, Gale continued her education at Cooper Medical College in San Francisco in 1902. There, she became involved with the Epworth League and Student Volunteer Movement, serving on missionary trips and eventually becoming president of the Student Volunteer chapter of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1905, she received her medical degree with specialization in surgery.

While on furlough from her missionary work in Nanchang in 1922, Gale took postgraduate medical courses at Columbia Medical College in preparation for her work in Tunxi (Tunki), Anhui.

Personal life Ailie Spencer married Francis Gale, then a theology student, in 1905, thereby changing her name to Ailie Gale. Although her husband received a salary that she did not, Francis Gale himself recognized and was often involved in Ailie's work. He was one of her most vocal supporters.

Together, they raised four children, three sons and an adopted Chinese daughter, Mary Gao Chen. Gale found Mary abandoned at the gate of the Nanchang Hospital as a one-month-old. While Mary was raised as Christian, Mary's upbringing also emphasized her Chinese identity as she was taught the Chinese language and wore traditional clothes. Gale impressed upon her from childhood the importance of her future role in serving the Chinese people and the precedence public service work took over marriage.

Medical missionary work in China

Call to mission work Although Gale received her medical degree, she did not take state board examinations, determined to utilize her medical skills in the mission rather than in America. Additionally, opportunities for medical work were scant for women in America, who faced discrimination in the male-dominated field; Gale was one of only four women in her graduating class from Cooper Medical College. Nevertheless, there still existed some conflict over the imposition of Western medicine over traditional Chinese healing practices. She was also the school physician and industrial class teacher for the Stephen L. Baldwin Memorial Girls' School starting in 1910 and provided medical services for the Women's Foreign Missionary Society's Women and Children's Hospital. In addition to overseeing and performing most of the medical work and surgical operations in each location, Gale also made house calls. All social classes were accounted for: treatment for the poor was free, financed by fees to upper-class patients.

She also served as a role model for female independence "the rapidly growing numbers of modernized Chinese women" as Chinese women "began their fight for a public role in the new democracy" and built a close relationship with the women she served.

Tunxi, Anhui: 1923–27 After returning home to complete postgraduate medical courses at Columbia Medical College, the Gale family again arrived in China in the Tunxi area in 1923 with three male nurses trained by Gale in Nanchang. The Board had commissioned Rev. Gale to continue evangelical work and Dr. Gale to take over medical work.

Gale ran a self-directed and self-administered public health campaign starting in 1925 with malaria as its main target issue. Putting a spin on the nationalist "kill the Japs" pamphlets widely distributed by students at the time, Gale and her nurses handed out "kill the fly" pamphlets. The campaign culminated in a week of public health in May 1926 with health parades of school children, nurses, and religious workers carrying banners and Chinese national flags, sanitation lectures held by hospital representatives, and musical entertainment. It was widely popular among Tunxi residents, and attendants included the police force and members of the Chamber of Commerce. The campaign was seen as a great success, both educating and encouraging enthusiasm among the Tunxi population. Afterwards, wire screen covers were manufactured by the Tunxi population and widely used in candy and fruit shops as protection against mosquitoes. Gale was satisfied with her placement in the College as it, with its faculty and Nationalist government backing, promoted education in order to empower a more active public role for women. Here, she held a public health clinic, once performing three hundred physical exams within one week. In addition to her role as a physician, Gale was also an educator and saw herself as a role model who collaborated with her students on public health projects and invited them to her home for meals.

Gale became closely associated with the Nationalist movement through her interest in the social programs for rural Chinese populations proposed by the New Life Movement and a friendly relationship with George Shepherd, one of the main Western advisors of the movement appointed by Chiang Kai-shek. Shepherd would often room in the Gales' home while traveling, and it was through him and his close affiliation with Chiang that Gale would learn much of the latest political happenings that she would later relate to her readers.

Nanchang: 1947–50 Gale returned to Nanchang in June 1947, joining her husband again at the Nanchang General Hospital which had been completely restored and staffed after destruction during Japanese occupation. Gale instead turned her attention to the Nanchang Boys' Academy, which at the time had neither a nurse nor a doctor. During these later years of service, she suffered from illness and an infected kidney; nevertheless, she continued work and ran the boys' clinic, seeing about 200 boys daily, and raised funds for medical supplies.

Throughout her years in China, Gale had protested Communism for its opposition to religion, as a Methodist and believer in Christian social activism herself, and for its rule that everyone must work to eat, as she believed that the most needy of society needed to be considered in a different light. Ultimately it was the Communist victory of Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949 that necessitated her final departure out of China as the Methodist Episcopal Board gave formal orders that cut all foreign personnel. On August 14, 1950, she returned to New York. This close connection proved essential in times when Gale's missionary funds ran low and her work became substantially funded through supporter contributions. To this end, Gale focused on communicating her many medical successes (rather than failures) and the gratitude of Chinese patients in order to recognize the significance of contributor participation in her missionary work and maintain her audience. This was especially notable during World War II as it was the willingness of the public to support China that shaped American foreign policy and the Sino-American alliance.

Honors Gale was recognized by many Chinese authorities throughout her years of service. Often she would receive commendations and merit boards, such as a 1918 proclamation by Nanchang's chief of Police Yien Ngen-yung that described Gale as "an American eminent doctor of medicine. Since she has taken charge of Nanchang Hospital all her surgical operations have been very successful." This proclamation reached even secular audiences when it was printed in the San Francisco Examiner in 1919. Civil Governor Tsi of the Ministry of Home Affairs at Beijing recognized her with a merit board, celebrated with a parade down the streets and posted on a public wall. For providing medical services to soldiers of the Northern and Southern armies during her time in Anhui, she was given memorial tablets from both armies. She received a written tribute from the China Inland Missionary for her forty years of service in China, which included recognition from Chinese colleagues for her professionalism as a surgeon and medical doctor, bravery, and generosity.