Korea’s first nursing school founder honored

Margaret Jane Edmunds, a late American nurse who founded Korea’s first nursing school in 1903, has been posthumously awarded the Order of Civil Merit by the South Korean government 70 years after her death, according to the Korean Nurses Association.

Edmunds (1871-1945) is the founder of the Pogunyogwan Training School for Nurses, which is now the division of nursing science at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. The first Korean nurses in history ― Kim Martha and Lee Grace ― were taught by Edmunds at the school and became nurses in 1906. Among the two, Kim was an abused housewife before joining Edmunds, while Lee had been a servant for an aristocratic family.

“Edmunds mentored the very first Korean women who chose to have a career with professional education,” said an official at the Korean Nurses Association.

Born in Ontario, Canada, Edmunds received her training as a nurse in Michigan in the U.S. and arrived in Korea as a Christian missionary in 1903. During her years as the president of Pogunyogwan from 1903 to 1908, she translated a number of English-language textbooks on nursing into Korean and introduced the first uniform for nurses to wear in the country.

She married William Butler Harrison, an American pastor who worked in Korea’s South Jeolla region, in 1908. Upon marring Harrison, she joined her husband’s missionary work in the Jeolla region.

Their son, Charles, was born in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province in 1911, and later participated as a marine officer during the Korean War. Edmunds returned to the U.S. with her husband in 1928, and died there in 1945.

The Order of Merit, received Tuesday by the Korean Nurses Association on Edmunds’ behalf, will be handed over to her descendants ― who currently live in the U.S. ― at the opening ceremony of the International Council of Nurses 2015 Conference in Seoul on June 19.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)