Mary Reed

Mary Reed (1854–1943) was an American Christian missionary to India. For the first ten years of her career, she worked as a school teacher in her home state of Ohio. In 1884, she went to India as a missionary of the Cincinnati Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and entered upon zenana missions work at Cawnpore. In 1890, she became conscious of a strange physical disability, and thinking that her health was failing, returned to the U.S. on a furlough. While recovering in Cincinnati came the dread suspicion and subsequent discovery that the malady was leprosy. At first, she was overwhelmed with the realization, but she quickly decided to give her life to work among the lepers in India, and her thoughts turned to Pithoragarh, among the foothills of the Himalayas, at the base of Chandag Heights, where a group of lepers lived in whom she had already become interested. Her suspicions as to the nature of her disease were confirmed by every specialist she consulted. She kept the diagnosis a secret, however, from her family, with the exception of one sister, and returned to India in 1891. Proceeding to Pithoragarh, Reed informed her family and friends by letter of her purpose, and her reason for choosing this service. Thereafter, she conducted her important work at Chandag, and built up an institution which in many respects was a model of order and well-arranged facilities. Reed continued to work among the lepers of India until her death in 1943. She was the first daughter in a family of four brothers and four sisters. Reed was moved by some compelling claim to give her life to India. She had heard of the narrow lives women were forced to live, confined within zenanas, with little or no occupation to relieve their monotonous days. Their condition of arrested growth, deprived of athletic development, awakened a responsive interest in the mind of Reed, as she taught boys and girls in the public schools in Ohio.

Early in 1892, a missionary wrote that Reed suffered constantly and was highly sensitive. For the first six months after Reed's arrival at Pithora, the disease made rapid progress, and she suffered intense pain most of the time. In September, 1893, she wrote:— "My good health is a marvel to all." On July 11, 1896, she wrote:— "As for my health, it is simply marvelous." Then, in August, she wrote again: "I could not tie myself down to my writing-desk this morning till I first sat down at my organ and played and sang."

By 1899, Reed's health was noted to be quite improved. a secretary of the (Edinburgh) "Mission to Lepers".

Mary Reed died in Chandag, India, in 1943,

Awards and honors 1917, Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal, awarded by the Government of India