Adele Marion Fielde

He Was Gone When She Arrived

Adele Marion Fielde (斐姑娘) was born in 1839 in New York State, USA, and grew up in the tradition of the Universalist Church. In her twenties she became engaged to a Baptist missionary candidate about to be sent to Siam (now Thailand). For his sake she agreed to become a Baptist and to travel to the mission field to marry him. In 1865, after a long sea voyage, she arrived in Siam, only to receive the news that he had died of illness several months before.

Dismissed by the Mission

In her grief she took up her fiancé's work. But she did not fit in with the local Baptist missionary community: she danced, played cards and mixed with diplomatic circles, all of which were unacceptable in missionary society at the time. For this she was dismissed by the mission and returned to America. This episode is seldom told in accounts of mission history, but it is a fact of her life. She was later reinstated and reassigned to China.

Bible Women

She settled in Shantou (Swatow), a port city in Guangdong, and there pioneered the ministry of "Bible women": training local women to go out as evangelists and Bible teachers. This approach met a real difficulty of the time. Chinese women in the inner quarters could not easily have contact with men from outside; foreign women missionaries were few in number and separated from them by language and culture. Having Chinese women bring the gospel to Chinese women solved the problem of access and also placed the work itself in Chinese hands. During her sixteen years in China she founded schools, wrote teaching materials, and trained about 500 Bible women.

The Missionary Who Studied Ants

After retiring to America, her life took an entirely different path: she devoted herself to scientific research and became known for her studies of ant behavior. A missionary who had trained 500 Chinese women evangelists in Shantou spent her later years in America observing ants. There is no break between these two chapters; the same thread runs through both: she was always doing work that others thought women could not do. She died in 1916.

"The Mother of Bible Women"

Ten years after her death, the Baptist mission honored her in these words: "the mother of our Bible women, and the mother of our Bible schools." It was the same system that had once dismissed her for dancing and playing cards.

About Her Chinese Name

"Fei Guniang" (斐姑娘, "Miss Fei") was only the popular local name for her in the Chaoshan region, not a formal Chinese rendering of her name. A search of Chinese and English historical sources found no standard three-character Chinese name for her. This database lists her under the name commonly used locally; should a more reliable source be found, it will be corrected.