Martha Sheldon

Martha A. Sheldon (May 22, 1860 — October 10, 1912) was an American medical missionary in India, Nepal, and Tibet.

Martha Sheldon, from a 1913 publication.

Early life

Martha Alma Sheldon was born in Excelsior, Minnesota, the daughter of Charles B. Sheldon and Mary Keziah Prentice Sheldon. Her father was a Congregational minister. She graduated first in her class from the University of Minnesota in 1883, where she was also active in skating, rowing, and swimming. She earned a medical degree in Boston, Massachusetts.^[1][2]

Career

Sheldon became a "missionary-deaconess" of the Methodist Episcopal Church^[3] in 1889, to serve in Darjeeling. After six years, she and Annie Budden moved to a mission post in the Pithoragarh district, near the India-Nepal border (in present-day Nepal). There she served from 1895 to 1912, most of those years with Eva C. M. Browne.^[4] The couple ran a small farm with vegetables, fruits, and cows. She learned the spoken Bhotiya language, devised a written version to record it, and composed translations of Christian texts for local use. She and Browne began a kindergarten, organized schools for girls and women, opened a clinic, built a church, and hosted visiting missionaries.^[5]

Sheldon and Browne traveled to Tibet in 1900-1902. In Tibet they offered medical care, helped start a Christian church, learned Tibetan and translated some texts into written Tibetan. "Again medical work opened the way for me to spend two weeks in Tibet. I was called to Lake Manasarowar to operate for cataract upon women living near the monastery," she wrote in a published letter. "It was a great joy to be in golden Tibet again."^[1] In one incident, the women disguised themselves as Bhotiya women to visit Taklakot, and held religious meetings, before officials asked them to leave.^[6]

Martha Sheldon and Eva Browne, from a missionary pamphlet about Sheldon's work.

On furlough in the United States in 1905, Sheldon addressed the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society meetings, from Redlands, California to Marlboro, Massachusetts.^[7][8]

Personal life

Sheldon died at Darchula in 1912, aged 72 years. Her partner Eva C. M. Browne wrote a biography of Sheldon.^[9] A biographical pamphlet was published by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.^[4]