Talk:Suining

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The map show Suining to be onteh eastern border of Sichuan. This is incorrect. It is in the central area, west of nanchong. See http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?refid=701516531

The counties seem to be incorrect. See the Chinese article. Bathrobe 04:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have read about the district "shizhong" is it the same Shehong? -Kaddkaka (talk) 22:53, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The history of Suining Middle School can be traced back to the year of 1908. At that time, there was a missionary, Miss Anna Lindblad, working at the church as well as the day school owned by Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1910, Miss Helen R. Galloway was sent to Suining to erect the building for the new boarding school. A land about 7-1/3 acres outside the North Gate of Suining was purchased as $1069. It was in February, 1913, that Miss Gertrude Tyler gathered about a dozen girls into some old buildings behind the church in Suining and they opened the first boarding school. In the last of July the school moved into the new Dormitory Building. Next year in 1914, the administration Building was erected. School was known officially as the "Stevens Memorial Suining Girls Boarding School", but was often called locally the Suining Higher Primary Girls School.

The Stevens Memorial Suining Girls Boarding School expanded having the Sunday School (1916), Woman's School (1918), Junior Middle School (1925), Senior Middle School (1927), and Kindergarten (1928). In 1925, the 2nd two-floor Dormitory Building was built. The first floor contained a dining room that should seat nearly 200 (named as Shoemaker Memorial dining room), a large and well lighted kitchen adjoining, and four bedrooms. The second floor had twelve bedrooms and an infirmary. The equipment of this school was good. The chapel was provided with organ, table and chairs, and seats for about 150 people. The assembly room was provided with movable desks and chairs. The classrooms had slider large arm chair or ordinary schoolroom desks. All rooms had tables for teachers. The science room had a complete set of science charts, a compound microscope, spectroscope, lenses, mirrors, balance and weights, etc. The library was equipped with reading tables and stools, about 300 volumes in Chinese magazines. The gymnasium was supplied with vertical and horizontal ladders, swinging rings, Indian clubs, dumbbells and wands. The superintendent’s office had the usual office furniture, typewriter, etc. The dining room, occupying lower part of one wing of dormitory, was furnished with long tables and benches. In each bedroom were beds, tables, cupboards and drawers. Most of the bedrooms held three beds and are used by six girls. In addition to the equipment above mentioned, there were a sewing machine, a practice organ, and a volley-ball court.

The following missionaries were in Suining and had worked for this school since it was openned in February of 1913:

Helen R. Galloway, 1911 - 1918 Anna Lindblad, 1908 - Gertrude Tyler, 1911 - Mary R. Royer, 1914 - Clara A. Caris, 1916 - Belle Castle, 1916 - Helen Desjardins, 1921 - Charlotte Trotter, 1921 - Ida Keister, 1925 - Mrs. Roger Rahn, 1925 - Miss Pilcher Miss Lawrence Maud Parsons, 1935 - Clara French, 1940 - Laura Schleman, 1940 - Luella Koether, 1943 - 1950 Janet Surdam, 1943 -1950

Helen R. Galloway was born January 14, 1857, in Washington, Iowa, one of the daughters of Mr. James Galloway and Mrs. Susan Meek Galloway. As her name indicates Miss Galloway is of Scotch ancestry. Miss Helen R. Galloway grew up in Washington, Iowa, and received an ordinary education and was employed for eight years as a book-keeper. A more complete yielding of her will and a deeper fuller experience led her to desire an occupation in which she could devote herself to Christian work. The first call was to be a Deaconese. To prepare for this work she went from her home at Mount Ayr, Iowa, in 1892, to the Chicago Training school, graduating in 1894. There came the call to foreign work. When she approached her aged mother about her decision, the dear saint replied: "My child, we are sure this is of the Lord. I once asked Him for a child I could give to the missionary cause. Go, and God bless you." Miss Galloway was accepted by the Des Moines Branch April 4, 1894, and sailed for ChungKing, West China, December 24, 1894, in company with her dear friend Miss Fannie E. Meyer of Missouri. This field, in the length of time it takes to reach it, is farthest away from home, taking their letters three months from time of starting to reach them. In 1897, Miss Galloway and Miss Meyer were consecrated Deaconesses by Bishop Joyce in ChungKing. She had proved, as was expected of her, a fine evangelist. In 1898, she had the women's school well started, and six of her women were taken into the church. In 1899, Misses Meyer and Todd, both being compelled to come to America, the whole work was left to Miss Galloway. She soon became dangerously ill, more from overwork than anything else. This collapse so aroused the workers at home that relief was sent as soon as possible. In 1900, Miss Galloway came home very greatly broken in health and all of her friends felt she would never see China again. Those who saw her at the Branch Annual Meeting in Kansas City that year can never forget how frail she looked. A good rest of about six months wrought a complete change and she was so well that she was eager to return to China, but wanted a physician, an nurse, an evangelist and a teacher to accompany her. She asked God to supply her needs and began to tell the people also. The physician and nurse were found in Brookfield, Montana. The physician, Dr. Agnes Edmonds, sent by the Des Moines Branch, and the nurse, Miss Williams, sent by the Minneapolis Branch, sailed with Miss Galloway as she set her face toward China in October, 1901, and she was just about as happy and contented as folks get this side of glory. She was doing evangelistic work in the country and reported the people as unusually willing, even anxious to hear the gospel. She once traveled about eight hundred miles mostly in a sedan chair and told the gospel story to more than twenty-five hundred women. She wrote to her friends: "China never can be better than her mothers, and to uplift them is to help bring to birth a new nation where God's kingdom shall be established." Miss Galloway was supported for many years by Mary Ashton, that frail, deaf, cripple girl, who raised so much for missions by selling book-marks which she made, and who went home to heaven about two years since. Her friends continued the support. In 1903, Miss Galloway suffered from fever for a time, but made a good recovery; and having been long on the field and more familiar with the language, a large share of the responsibility for the finishing of the hospital fell to her: nothing could be bought. All articles such as beds, operating tables,… must be made on the ground. It was necessary to show the Chinese carpenter a picture of what you wanted, to buy the wood in a tree, to have it properly cut, to go into the minutest explanations of the painting and finishing; to buy the cotton in the raw and have it cleaned on the premises, and the mattresses made under her direction. In fact, as one wrote: "A missionary in West China must be more than an intelligent missionary. She must be an architect, a master builder, an artisan of various accomplishments, and a skilled manager of workmen." They were able to open the hospital in the spring of 1903, named as "Gamble Memorial Hospital", the first hospital for women and children in West China. The nurse having married, Miss Galloway was made superintendent of the hospital. Her fine business ability and knowledge of the language and people rendered her especially need for the business side of the work. How to assist in the operations she had to learn from Dr. Edmonds. In 1904, her mother went home to heaven, and she realized "what it meant to be a missionary in China with no mother to pray for her," but God comforted her. In this hospital work there was a fine opportunity for a spiritual development of the patients. They were so eager to learn, and the ward looked very much as school rooms. Many were converted during their brief sojourns. At the end of her first ten years of service, Miss Galloway was able to look back over some very definite results. The Deaconesses home was built, the school building and the hospital were erected and opened, the Training school for women and evangelistic work begun. In 1907 she pleaded earnestly for an addition to the hospital that the girls might not have to be in the same ward with the women who often used very bad language. There was great need for private rooms for which the richer people would gladly pay a fee. The fees would help toward the support of the hospital, and also increase its influence, as well as relieve the suffering of the rich, who, as Miss Galloway said, "suffer just as acutely and without help, die just as quickly as the others." She was also very insistent for a trained nurse who could train these young women to be professional nurse. This wish as gratified in 1908. On Christmas eve., 1908, Miss Galloway landed in New York for her second furlough. She was secretly started home before they wrote from the field how much they missed her, because of her experience and good judgment. While at home she did some splendid work throughout the Branch. Enrooted in 1910, she was privileged to attend the Edinburgh Conference as a delegate from woman's Foreign Missionary Society. On her return to China she was sent to Suining, West China, to erect the building for the new boarding school to be opened there in a very needy district. Miss Galloway was companied with a new missionary, Miss Gertrude Tyler who was a language student in ChungKing. In Suining, there was a missionary, Miss Anna Lindblad who came there in 1908, working at day school. While in Suining, Miss Galloway was very seriously ill with typhoid, far away from medical help, but through the providence of God, a physician of the Friends' Mission was there on business, and he remained for weeks to care for her, refusing compensation saying, "to save one woman for China was enough". She made good recovery and was again at the building business. A land about 7-1/3 acres outside the North Gate of Suining was purchased as $1069. As the building was just well started the Revolution came on, and they were compelled to leave the work late in 1911. She returned to Suining in September, 1912, and found that the man to charge of her property had built a good wall around the compound and taken such good care of the material that nothing was lost. She was still overselling the building. In the winter that year she had a very severe accident in which she crushed her right hand, and from which she was suffered permanently. She had charge of the evangelistic work of the district, and organized an auxiliary of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society. It was in February, 1913, that Miss Tyler gathered about a dozen girls into some old buildings behind the church in Suining and they opened the first boarding school. In the last of July the school moved into the new Dormitory Building. Next year in 1914, the administration Building was erected. School was known officially as the "Stevens Memorial Suining Girls Boarding School", but was often called locally the Suining Higher Primary Girls School. In the first year, there were twenty-two girls. The conditions for entrance of this school were two contracts. One is an adoption, used when the parents want to be ride of the child and to give her to us, then those their parents are willing to take the girl home in the summer and care for her and bring her back for the fall term. Miss Galloway had been giving some of the girls lessons on the organ, look after the home life of the girls, as well as school's finances, and other business matters. In a letter to her friend on July 5, 1915, Miss Galloway wrote "every line of work full of promise and our hearts full of praise to God for letting us live and work for Him here in the remotest corner of His vineyard. I have given 20 years of service to West China and she is dear to my heart!" From 1918 to 1924, Miss Galloway lived in ChungKing. In 1924, Miss Galloway returned to America and made her home at Normal Heights, San Diego, Calif.. Miss Galloway immediately identified herself with the Normal Heights Methodist Episcopal Church, where she continued her labor of love, teaching in the Sunday school, very active in the women's missionary societies, on the official board as a steward, and indeed her gracious influence was felt through out the whole church. Miss Helen R. Galloway passed away at her home in San Diego, Calif. on June 25, 1934. Surviving her are a sister, Mrs. Anna M. Saville, Independence, Montana; three brothers, J.A. Galloway, Mount Ayr, Iowa; O.M. Galloway, Missoula, Montana; and T.C. Galloway, Redding, Iowa.

Contact at e-mail address: ping_duan1@yahoo.com for more details.