--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: U.S. doctor’s legacy remembered after 80 years image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8238455a2cd0a59f/6a4b523a39362b3e518415a2/BEC000F0CA5845D69810235AC2848B76.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # U.S. doctor’s legacy remembered after 80 years  _This content was paid for and prepared by China Daily, an official publication of the People's Republic of China. The TIME editorial and advertising departments were not involved in the creation of this content._ Thomas and Huang Yao (the granddaughter of Hua Sing, one of Dr. Ruth V. Hemenway’s adopted Chinese daughters) pose for a photo in front of Enlan Building, located within Minqing Liudu Hospital, where Dr. Hemenway once worked, in July. BAO HUA / FOR CHINA DAILY By ZHANG YUNBI and HU MEIDONG Legendary U.S. missionary doctor Ruth V. Hemenway, and her great wartime help lent to Chinese people, became known to more people in China. During her stay in China from 1924 to 1941, she joined the Chinese people in tackling the lack of medical supplies and poor facilities. She saved numerous lives amid the darkest moments for the country inflicted by Japan’s wartime atrocities, including slaughtering, bombing and raping. Hemenway was born in the United States in 1894 in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. After her graduation from high school in 1910, she taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Conway, Massachusetts, and later in the Williamsburg-Searsville School, in order to save enough money to go to medical school. Later she entered Tufts Medical School and graduated in 1921, and she had decided to practice medicine in China by her junior year. She realized that the best opportunity to reach that goal was to become a missionary doctor after interning at the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia and at the Pennsylvania State Hospital in Allentown. In 1924, she arrived in China and settled in the then Mintsing, which is now called Minqing, of eastern China’s Fujian province. She was there directing a hospital, which became today’s Minqing Liudu Hospital. She remained there for thirteen years, except for one year when she was surgeon at a hospital in Nanjing of eastern China’s Jiangsu province. “Hemenway arrived in China a single woman, without knowledge of the Chinese languages, in the midst of political and social chaos,” said Thomas, a descendant of Ruth V. Hemenway. Thomas has long been tracing her footprints in China. He noted that rather than remaining in the relative safety and comfort of the treaty ports, Hemenway chose to work in remote villages among the Chinese peasantry. “She treated many victims of the protracted violence, and ran clinics that improved prenatal and neonatal healthcare for women and children” in rural Fujian province, he said. Liu Shouguang, former head of Minqing Liudu Hospital, said, “Beyond managing daily hospital operations, she frequently embarked on medical tours in rural areas, visiting villages and households to serve the local people.” Hemenway worked tirelessly to expand the hospital, improve medical facilities, and broaden service coverage by establishing branch clinics in both urban and rural areas. She promoted vaccinations, disseminated health knowledge, and conducted health education campaigns. She also nurtured medical talent, established a nurse school and mentored medical personnel, according to Liu. “Her footsteps covered most of mountains and streams in Minqing,” he added. In 1937, Hemenway volunteered with the Red Cross Society of China to join the medical service, and asked to be sent to the frontline medical posts in the war zone. Later, she journeyed alone through gunfire to southwestern China’s major city Chongqing, which was known as Chunking at that time. Hemenway joined a hospital sponsored by Syracuse University. There, she was responsible for obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics. In the summer of 1939, she planned to return to Minqing but was stranded by the worsening war situation. Afterwards, she accepted an invitation from Zizhou Hospital and traveled to Zizhou, a small town located between Chengdu and Chongqing, to continue her frontline medical work. In 1940, her health deteriorated severely due to heavy workload and malnutrition. In 1941, she had to return to the U.S. for treatment. In July this year, Thomas traveled to China to attend a series of friendship events, and he achieved his first face-to-face encounter with Huang Yao, granddaughter of Hua Sing, one of Ruth’s adopted daughters. Huang said she is “very proud of the family heritage” as endowed by Hemenway. “Dr. Hemenway made outstanding contribution to maternal and pediatric medicine in China, and my family has nurtured many medical workers as influenced by her,” Huang said. “I’m so glad to have invited her descendant living back in the U.S. to China to have a look at her greatest heritage left in this country, which is still cherished by Chinese people by heart,” she added. When touring alongside Huang at Minqing Liudu Hospital, Thomas said, “This has been an amazing experience. It is like a dream come true to be in the place that Dr. Hemenway practiced and see the clinics that she started and the work that she contributed to China.” “I think maybe the most important is the fact that I have met my long-lost Chinese cousin. Our families have been separated for decades,” he added. _Yang Jie contributed to this story._ U.S. doctor’s legacy remembered after 80 years ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/branded-content/china-daily/us-doctors-legacy-remembered-after-80-years/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/branded-content/china-daily/us-doctors-legacy-remembered-after-80-years/"},"headline":"U.S. doctor’s legacy remembered after 80 years","datePublished":"2026-06-18T14:28:39.707Z","dateModified":"2026-06-09T07:28:05.435Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/branded-content/china-daily/us-doctors-legacy-remembered-after-80-years/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/branded-content/china-daily/us-doctors-legacy-remembered-after-80-years/","name":"U.S. doctor’s legacy remembered after 80 years"}}]}] ```