1900 - Etta & Herbert Ward

July 22, 1900

Quzhou, Zhejiang

Etta Ward.

Etta Ward (neé Fuller) was an American from the state of Iowa. Born in 1866, her parents passed away and she became an orphan at an early age. Etta found Christ at the age of 12 and later attended the Minneapolis Training Institute, departing for the Orient as a missionary with the China Inland Mission in 1894. For the first three years she worked at Changshan in Zhejiang Province, where her inner charm and beauty attracted the interest of George Ward. After their marriage in 1897 the Wards saw a sudden surge in their work. In two years the number of Christians in Changshan doubled. The arrival of a baby boy, Herbert Calvin, added to their joy in 1899.

Etta, her little son Herbert, and Emma Thirgood left Changshan by boat on the afternoon of July 21, 1900. By evening time, they had only managed to travel about ten miles (16 km) from the city when they looked back and saw a red glow in the sky above Changshan. They assumed the Boxers had arrived and were burning the city, so they proceeded towards Quzhou, arriving there at daybreak on July 22nd. The city was in an uproar due to the massacre of the Thompson family and other missionaries the previous day. The boatmen were scared and refused to take the two ladies and child any further. Taking the missionaries’ baggage, they threw it on the riverbank, and ordered them to get off the vessel.

After waiting on the riverbank for a long time, a boat came up and offered to take the besieged trio to Hangzhou. They were relieved, but just as they started placing their luggage on the boat the same mob that had viciously killed the Thompsons descended on the riverbank. The leader demanded money, to which Etta Ward took off her wedding ring and offered it to her persecutors. The leader snatched it from her and sneered, “We want your life, not your gold rings.” They

“stabbed her in the arm, and with a push she fell on her side. The crowd then seemed to fade from her sight, and all she saw was her babe needing to be fed from her breast, and drawing the helpless infant to her she pressed it to her bosom. The fiends then stabbed mother and child together, and with the next blow severed the mother’s head from her shoulders, and so ended their sufferings together.”[1]