1900 - Josephine Desmond

July 21, 1900

Quzhou, Zhejiang

Josephine Desmond.

Josephine Elizabeth Desmond was born in West Newton, Massachusetts, in 1867. Her parents were staunch Catholics, having migrated from Ireland before she was born. While attending a Christian school, Josephine entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. During her five years at school the famous missionary statesman Robert Speer visited the seminary and spoke on the urgent claims of the heathen around the world. Josephine sensed God was calling her to become a missionary, so she attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

After serving two years as a missionary among a Native American tribe in South Dakota, Desmond applied to join the China Inland Mission. They required her to do a preparatory course in Toronto, Canada, where she was trained in nursing. She finally departed for China in 1898. For the first year she studied the Chinese language, and was then sent to assist Miss Britton at Xiaoshan in Zhejiang Province. When Britton returned to England on furlough, Desmond was asked to temporarily relocate to Quzhou to help in the growing work there. In one of her last letters, dated June 6, 1900, Desmond wrote,

“I have been to several of the outstations this spring…. Mr. Lin went with Miss Sherwood and me to places round about, we had the Bible-woman with us. The people came in crowds and listened well. In one place an old woman believed from the first and stayed with us until she had learned a prayer. It is such a joy to find the ‘other sheep’ in these out-of-the-way places.”[1]

Josephine Desmond was with the Thompsons when they were savagely slaughtered on the streets of Quzhou on July 21, 1900. She too was mercilessly murdered. The gentry of the city and the officials who had witnessed the killing then sent town criers throughout Quzhou, announcing that if anyone was caught sheltering foreign or Chinese Christians they would be killed for doing so.

Josephine Desmond was 33-years-old and had served in China just 18-months.