She was so well-known that a letter reached her simply addressed to “Dr. Ida, India.” Ida Scudder (1870-1960) was born to American missionary parents in India. Her father was a missionary doctor as was her grandfather, who left a thriving New York medical practice to enter the mission field in 1836. Forty-two members of the Scudder family over five generations have devoted 1,100 years to Christian medical mission in South India.
Ida initially had little interest in continuing in her father’s footsteps. She preferred the educational comforts in the US but was called home to care for her ailing mother in India. A college friend said before she left, “You’re going to become a missionary just like the rest of your family.” Ida snapped back., “Oh no, I won’t. I will never be a missionary. You’ll see. I’ll be back in a year.” Three different Indian men knocked at the parents’ door one evening seeking medical attention for their distressed wives in labor. Their custom wouldn’t allow a male doctor to treat their wives, so they refused her dad’s help.
When Ida learned the next morning that all three women died in delivery, it stirred her to action. She sensed “God was calling me into his work” and enrolled at Cornell University in 1899, among the first class of women accepted into medical school. She opened a one-bed clinic in Vellore, South India, and two years later, expanded it to a forty-bed hospital. She set up a roadside medical dispensary to provide care for remote villagers. When she needed additional staff, she opened a medical school for women nurses and medical doctors, unimaginable in those days. Today, it’s one of Asia’s foremost teaching hospitals.
When asked about her ambitious plans for a medical school, Aunt Ida, as she was called, said, “First ponder, then dare. Know your facts. Count the cost. Money is not the important thing. What you are building is not a medical school. It’s the Kingdom of God. Don’t err on the side of being too small.” Her prayer leads us to meet today’s challenges with like-minded confidence and gladness: