Elizabeth Newman Part 2

[00:00:04] Welcome to Women Worth Knowing, the radio program and podcast hosted by Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones Gunn. We have part two today on Elizabeth Newman. Cheryl discovered this woman in a little paperback book. And again, we've said it before, but how valuable it is for these stories to be told and how important to capture those details because generations later are, like we are,

[00:00:34] being motivated to serve the Lord and inspired by sweet Elizabeth. Okay, so she was born in 1855 and when she was, she lived in a little village south of London. And when she was just 13, her father was injured, thrown from a horse and an invalid. And for the next seven years, Elizabeth cared for him. She had complete responsibility, was not able to continue her education.

[00:01:03] Or play with the other kids. Right, or have any kind of life but to care for her father. And when she was 20 and her father passed, Elizabeth had been noticed by the local doctor who said, I will sponsor you for a hospital in London if you want to continue this nursing path. And so she was interested in doing that in her early 20s. God opened doors. She went.

[00:01:28] She excelled, even though her education hadn't been prime. Or, you know, the Lord just made a way for her. And as Cheryl told us at the beginning of the first episode, you have to go back and listen to that one, that the word that defines Elizabeth is undaunted. Undaunted. She was not going to stop.

[00:01:49] And when a woman who was a doctor, Dr. Butler, came from Kashmir, India, inviting Elizabeth to go back with her to India, even with the opposition, Elizabeth's mother saying, absolutely not. But we'd heard that before from her mother. And yet Elizabeth went the harrowing journey just to get there. And here they are. We left off. We're there in this village that is just sewage in the streets, cows roaming.

[00:02:19] The women terrified to, because they're not allowed, to go to the hospital that's there, the facility. And so when we left off, Cheryl was saying that these Dr. Butler and Elizabeth were going door to door to try to find somebody they could help. Door to door to find patients, yes. Can we help you, please? Please let us help you. And a woman with a sick baby finally said, I don't know what to do. Help me.

[00:02:47] And when the child lived, then, again, their reputation began to soar. These white women are sincere. They're real. And Muslim women, and they said Muslim women in their dark veils and dark outfits would come to them. And the Hindu women in their bright saris with their, you know, veils would come to them, too. And pretty soon they were so busy.

[00:03:14] Their little dispensary, their little house was filled. And the women would bring their mats that needed to stay. And they were on the ground. And Elizabeth and Dr. Butler were treating them, you know, every way they could and helping them. And they didn't have to go door to door anymore because the women just came in droves. And, you know, the Lord gave Elizabeth and Dr. Butler so much success dealing with these women.

[00:03:41] And Dr. Butler was so impressed with Elizabeth. She said, Elizabeth, you have the skills of a doctor. You really need to continue your education and study to be a doctor. So she gave Elizabeth her medical books to use and said, study these, read these. I will answer any questions. And I will train you to be a doctor so that you can have all the skills that I have because doctors are so desperately needed. So Elizabeth began to study and to train with Dr. Butler.

[00:04:10] Fifteen months after arriving in Kashmir, Dr. Butler contracted typhoid. Oh, dear. And for five days, Elizabeth took care of Dr. Butler. Well, you can certainly see how that would happen with the conditions and all that they're being exposed to and the terrible long hours without any. I'm sure the food issues were a challenge also. Yeah. But Dr. Butler died. She died.

[00:04:41] Oh. And so here's the whole motivation. The person that brought her to Kashmir, India, the person that she's been working with, the person that trained her, that knew the skills, everything, and who she's been working side by side with. She dies. And Elizabeth continues. She stays in that house and continues to minister and to treat the women that were coming. Now, here's another setback.

[00:05:08] Elizabeth did not speak the Kashmir language. Dr. Butler did. But Elizabeth didn't. Now, Elizabeth can't afford a tutor to teach her. There are no books written in Kashmir where she can study the language. So she has to learn it by immersion and just interaction with all of the people. This is how she learns the language.

[00:05:31] Now, after a time, another missionary came that was sent by the Missionary Society, and her name was Miss Churchill Taylor. Now, Miss Churchill Taylor was very efficient. She was not a nurse. But Elizabeth said she was super gifted with organization and with proclamation of the gospel and with cleaning, with hygiene, which is super good.

[00:05:55] And so they set about begging for boxes and old matchboxes and old clothes. This is all at the instigation of Miss Churchill Taylor. And what they did was they assembled all these old boxes into a vegetable and flower garden and also as shelves to organize things. And then they took some of the other boxes and they covered this open well in their yard to make it safe.

[00:06:24] And then they took the matchboxes and they organized all the pills and medicines into these matchboxes, which were labeled by Miss Churchill Taylor. I'm glad she had the gift of organization. Truly.

[00:06:37] And then the old clothes, Miss Churchill Taylor boiled the old clothes, went through this whole process and tore them into bandages and made swaps for Elizabeth to be able to help and minister in medically to all these women that are coming. They also collected old letters, all this paper. And what they did with the old letters is they stuffed them into mattresses.

[00:07:04] So if they had a septic case, they would give those women the mattress with all the letters inside because the letters would burn really easily afterwards. So they would burn these letters and these old mattresses that held septic patients in that way, help purify and keep the diseases and the poison from spreading. During this time, Elizabeth was called to care for the governor of Kashmir's wife.

[00:07:34] And the wife was no more than a child herself. Elizabeth, looking at her, thought she was probably around 13 at the oldest. And she was pregnant and she was having a lot of difficulty delivering. She couldn't deliver. Elizabeth stayed with this young woman and helped her to deliver a healthy baby boy. And the governor of Kashmir was so impressed. He said, you know, if ever you need me, just, you know, let me know if I can help you.

[00:08:02] Now, Elizabeth, in the meantime, as she's ministering, she finds herself hampered constantly by superstitions. The self-treatments and the ideas that they had about how to treat different wounds and ailments actually made the women worse and complicated the healing process for Elizabeth when she was trying to give medications.

[00:08:26] Also, the prejudices, the prejudices against Elizabeth being a woman from England, the prejudices of race, whether you were Muslim or Hindu. So she was coming against all these things and even antiquated and dangerous traditions that were held by the people of Kashmir.

[00:08:45] For instance, one of those traditions were that Hindu boys that were Brahmin, that their clothes had to be sewed with wooden sticks for the first five years of their life, that no metal could be found around them. So you couldn't use a metal needle or anything of iron or anything else could touch them. They couldn't eat from it.

[00:09:11] So everything that they had to use was wooden and or made out of reeds. It was just the craziest rules. And it just hampered the people from excelling. So Elizabeth patiently endured. She patiently listened. She patiently learned their traditions in order not to offend them. And she prayed and continued to minister to these women.

[00:09:39] Now, during this time of ministry, she received the Kaiser E. Hind medal in recognition of her services to the women of Kashmir. But Elizabeth, because she didn't care about clothes and she was always sacrificing to save her money to buy medical instruments and to do more for the women of Kashmir, had to borrow a nursing outfit from another missionary just so that she could receive this honor. Isn't that so sweet? She just didn't care about her clothes.

[00:10:08] She didn't care about herself. She was so other-centered in her ministry. Now, Elizabeth realized very soon, and so did Ms. Churchill Taylor, that their little house was totally inadequate for the number of patients that were now coming. She longed to have a hospital. Well, remember the governor of Kashmir? Yes. He said, well, I know of some property on the banks of the river that might work for you.

[00:10:36] Now, foreigners were not allowed to own the land. So he made arrangements. So she didn't actually own the land, but she could build a hospital there. So she and Ms. Churchill Taylor built a Kashmir house because they built a hospital that looked like a house because they didn't want the women to be intimidated. And if they built an English-looking hospital or anything that even slightly resembled an American hospital, the women would have been so intimidated they wouldn't come.

[00:11:05] So they made it look like a house. And then they planted a garden all around it to make it even more appealing for the women to come. And it was a beautiful setting. In 1891, they opened this little hospital, but there was no doctor in residency. So Elizabeth was really the main medical help.

[00:11:28] She hired and trained some of the local women in nursing to help her with, you know, the grunt work and taking care of the patients. And then doctors who lived in Bombay and other places, these missionary doctors, would often come to Kashmir and work for a season. They might work during the summer because the air was cooler in Kashmir. And so they would volunteer maybe in the fall or in the summer to come and work.

[00:11:56] And that's the only doctors that she had. In the fall of 1891, a cholera epidemic hit the Kashmir region. And many felt it was the water in the river. And there were quite a few people in Kashmir that died because they did not boil their water. Many were ill and many fled the area. Their little hospital was filled to absolute capacity.

[00:12:22] But by the winter, when the first frost came, the cholera died with the frost and the epidemic ended. Two years later, okay, undaunted, undaunted, right? Yep. Two years later, in 1893, Elizabeth is now 38 years old. The rain was torrential in Sarangar. They are right on the river. They are right on the river, exactly. And it caused this flooding. And all of the staff fled the hospital.

[00:12:53] Elizabeth was left alone to get all her patients to safety. And, you know, as the Lord would have it, a lot of the relatives fearing the flooding that was happening came to the hospital and they took their own relatives out of the hospital and back home. But the others, Elizabeth, had to by herself get to a safe place. And she could see that the river was rising. And by this time, the water was up to her knees.

[00:13:22] But she went back into the hospital to save all the instruments. You know, the medical instruments, they were expensive. They were important. She didn't know how she could get a hold of. Exactly. How could you replace them? Exactly. And while she was in there, she heard this cry and this roaring. And she ran out with all of the instruments that she could carry.

[00:13:42] And she saw the river rising up like this huge wave coming, you know, at her little house. She ran up to the high ground just making it in time and watched as the whole hospital, that house she had built, was swept away down the river. Oh. All of it.

[00:14:08] So Elizabeth and Miss Churchill Taylor found temporary housing outside of town. And there she met an English man who was suffering from typhoid. One day while Elizabeth was attending this man, the earth began to shake under her feet violently. Everyone who was in the house, because he was a rather wealthy man, fled from the house. And Elizabeth was left alone with this bedridden man who was absolutely terrified.

[00:14:37] So Elizabeth just stayed in the room, even as the house was shaking with the man, and began just to pray out loud. And just saying, Lord, thank you that we have nothing to fear because you are with us and you are protecting us. And as she prayed, she went about the room just cleaning it up and straightening it just with this happy prayer. And the man never forgot her calm and the fact that she stayed with him and did not flee.

[00:15:05] And this will become important later in our story. In 1895, the Maharaja heard about the destruction of the women's hospital and loaned Elizabeth a large building by a lake to make into a hospital. Once again, Elizabeth and Miss Churchill Taylor clean transformed the edifice into a hospital for women. For the next two years, Elizabeth carried on nursing and ministering to all the patients that came.

[00:15:33] However, after two years, another torrential season of rain came. And again, the staff fled. And again, Elizabeth was left alone to save all of the patients. Okay, I never knew the meaning of the word undaunted. And now I do. Yes, I know. I've just been thinking, Cheryl, look at the little things that get you down and frustrate you.

[00:16:02] And Elizabeth was undaunted. So she was unable to collect the medical instruments this time because the water was too high. It was up to her chest and Elizabeth didn't know how to swim. So as soon as she got every patient to safety and she was trying to get them to this boat and they were waiting for her to get on this boat. But the man on the boat demanded 100 rupees, rubles of her. And she said, I don't have any money. Please save my patient. Save me. Save these women.

[00:16:32] And he's kept demanding 100 rubles. Right then, this young man, a Hindu, who belonged to the mission school because the mission school was teaching both Hindus and Muslims how to read and write regardless of their religion. They had come to minister. One of these young men was on a rowboat and he said, are you having problems? And she said, yes. You know, I'm trying to save these people.

[00:16:57] So he got out of his boat, went on this barge, pushed the man overboard and brought all the patients and Elizabeth on and wrote them to their destination. The Lord provides in mysterious ways. Indeed. Well, right after this, the villages of Kashmir were wiped out by this flood. It was 1895. The government initiated a program to help the people.

[00:17:21] And Elizabeth, because she was trustworthy and the Maharaji so favored her, was in charge of distributing funds to the various families. This gave her the opportunity to meet the different people in the village, build relationships and give them money. She became like the most popular person in town. Come on in. Exactly. And even as her relationship with all these people in Kashmir was growing, word reached her from England that her two sister-in-laws had suddenly died.

[00:17:50] Leaving behind young children. Her brothers requested that she would come back to England and tend to her family, her nieces and nephews. By this time, her mother had died and there was no one else to watch these young children. Elizabeth was torn. She felt a family obligation, but at the same time, she had come to love the people of Kashmir and loved ministering to them. If she went to England, would she be able to return?

[00:18:17] If she returned, would the people remember her? Would they trust her? Would she have to start from square one again? However, after much prayer, Elizabeth decided she needed to return to England. She left or gave away most of her possessions save one, her cat, Aziza. Aziza accompanied her back to England.

[00:18:41] And for the next eight years, Elizabeth nurtured her nieces and nephews until the last one was self-sufficient. And as she was there, she continued to hone her medical skills, did private nursing care, and studied and took more classes on medical training. We think about missionaries going back home on furlough. This was not a furlough. No. This was just a new assignment. New assignment, right?

[00:19:10] In 1904, now almost 50, she returned to Kashmir, and the people were elated. Yes, even after eight years, they remembered Elizabeth, and they began to flood back to her home. Oh, but there are troubles. The Hindu priest became alarmed at Elizabeth's popularity and feared that her influence for Jesus would convert the women to Christianity.

[00:19:38] After all the lives, even though their lives were so hard, and that was part of the reason, because their lives were so hard. And they saw in Elizabeth a gentleness, a peace, and a love, and a continuous joy. So the Hindu priest spread slanderous rumors about her, saying she was a wicked woman and told the Hindu women not to go near her or listen to her.

[00:20:03] At the same time, as if that's not enough opposition, there was an older missionary who became very critical of her and reported her to the mission society for not being evangelistic enough. He visited her one day and just began to berate her for not immediately preaching the gospel to the women who came to her. Calmly and gently, she responded, I know that I am not what I ought to be, but I cannot preach to these poor people when they are in pain.

[00:20:32] Would you like to be preached at when you are in pain? I try to make them comfortable, and later on, when they are ready to listen, I talk to them. Elizabeth started saving money in order to build a new hospital. This would be her third. However, although she scrimped and saved, she never had enough. Then she read about a hospital in England that was built by donations. So she wrote as many letters as she could, even when her hand was cramping up.

[00:21:01] And she felt like her letters were inadequate. She felt like her grammar was not up to par. And yet she kept writing these letters, asking for donations, explaining what she wanted to do. Donations begin to pour in from England. Soon, she had collected $8,000. She went to the Maharaja. To get special permission as a foreigner to purchase a parcel of land in Ranawari. She went then to the mission school and asked the young men if they would help her.

[00:21:31] Now, most of the young men by this time were Brahmin. They were the highest Indian class, and work-like building was below them. However, they were so taken with Elizabeth's appeal, her demeanor, her vision, her enthusiasm that they agreed to help her. And help her, they did. In 1910, the hospital opened. And only a few weeks later, here it is. It was besieged by fire. Oh, no!

[00:21:58] But the mission boys once again came to the rescue and put the fire out. They also helped with the repairs. It was a miracle. The Brahmin boys would help an English Christian woman in this endeavor for women. Elizabeth continued to receive donations to pay for the equipment and the staff. The hospital was still without a doctor in residency. However, once again, missionary doctors would come for a season to help. One of the doctors who came every summer was a Dr. Janet Vaughn.

[00:22:28] Elizabeth pressed her, even as Dr. Butler had pressed Elizabeth, to consider moving to Kashmir and taking up residency at the hospital. After much prayer, Dr. Janet Vaughn did just that. The hospital was kept spotless, and the donations continued to come in. And more beds, more supplies, and more equipment were able to be purchased. Elizabeth was never put off by adverse circumstances.

[00:22:55] The difficulties in India only made her more empathetic and more loving towards the people. The floods did not keep her from building a new hospital. Earthquakes could not shake her faith. The lays did not frustrate her. Thieves made her chuckle. She told the story of being called one night on an emergency visitation to a woman who needed intervention as quickly as possible. If she would take the way around a Muslim cemetery, it would be more than two hours, and she knew the woman did not have that much time.

[00:23:25] So she chose to go through a Muslim cemetery rather than to waste time. Well, the man who had come to fetch her said, I'm not going in there. Something terrible would happen to us. You know, as a Muslim, if I go through the cemetery and violating everything. However, Elizabeth prevailed and started walking through that cemetery. As they were walking through, they saw these green eyes staring at them. It was completely dark. They had a little lantern. And suddenly they realized a snow leopard was charging at them.

[00:23:55] The snow leopard came charging at them, got all the way to them, and just stopped for no reason. Sniffed Elizabeth, who just kept walking because a woman was in danger. And then the snow leopard just walked with them like a kitty cat would walk next to its master. Until they looked around, they were almost all the way through the cemetery, and the snow leopard was gone. Wow. Was absolutely gone. But even a snow leopard could not.

[00:24:25] Undaunted. Right. Could not shake or keep Elizabeth from her objective. So Elizabeth continued to minister in Kashmir well into her 70s. One night in 1932, while visiting Gullmark, a place she loved for the beautiful sunsets and would go just to rest, she fell asleep and awoke in the arms of Jesus at 77 years old.

[00:24:54] She was called Miss Sahiba by the people, which means Miss Lady. Miss Lady. And what a lady Elizabeth Newman was. And you know, had somebody not had the forethought to say this woman is important and this story needs to be known, we would never know the story of Elizabeth Newman.

[00:25:35] We hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Make sure you rate us on your podcast app, subscribe, and share it with a friend. Thank you again for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Broderson and Robin Jones-Gunn.