Karen Gormsen

Karen Dorthea Gormsen (21 February 1880 – 2 December 1960) was a Danish nurse, Lutheran missionary and orphanage founder and director active in Antung (present-day Dandong).

Early life and education Gormsen was born on 21 February 1880 in Vøjstrup, to Hans Peter Gormsen (1847–1935), a farmer, and Anna Johanne Nielsen (1844–1929), a spinner, sewist and farmworker.

From 1900 to 1904, Gormsen trained as a nurse at Copenhagen Municipal Hospital and later worked as a nurse in Kerteminde. Responsible for the women's ward, Gormsen began taking in abandoned children. In December 1950, Gormsen left China. Gormsen's memoirs My Children in China was posthumously published in 1961. In 1980, Gormsen was posthumously rehabilitated.

Personal life On 2 December 1960 Gormsen died in Copenhagen, aged 80.