Dr. Ida is a legend in South India
By Virgil Scudder, Second Vice President; Member, Executive Committee
As I was preparing to embark with SAF President Sue Swanson and then-Secretary Clive Connor for a visit to the Scudder-founded schools and hospitals in India last January, I received a word of advice from Dr. James Taylor. Jim has frequently visited the institutions that his ancestors founded and, with his wife Dr. Susan Taylor, has made significant contributions to them.
“Get ready to be treated like royalty,” Jim told me, adding “The Scudder name is revered in South India. There will be a lot of garlanding and ceremony for you three there.”
He was right. It was virtually non-stop garlanding and ceremony with many tributes to the Scudder name as we toured CMC Vellore, Scudder Memorial Hospital, Arni School, and Walter Scudder School.
Aunt Ida is the best known and most renowned of the many Scudders who made huge contributions to the health, education, and spiritual uplift of thousands of residents of an economically deprived area of India.
As you can see in the picture below, Ida’s statue was also heavily garlanded for the December 9 celebration in Vellore where the statue permanently resides. Bishop Sharma of the Diocese of South India is seen honoring her memory at the treasured statue, which is protected by a wire cage. He was joined by his wife, Bishop Amma Sofia, and a colleague.
Ida was born in 1870 to John and Sophia Scudder in a line of medical missionaries that started with her grandfather, John Scudder, Senior. Growing up as a child in India, Ida witnessed famine, poverty and disease. After seeing three women die in childbirth in one night because their husbands would not let them be treated by a male doctor, she headed for the United States and earned an MD degree from Cornell University.
Diploma in hand, she returned to India and set to work treating women and helping women get trained to become doctors and nurses.
She traveled the countryside, treating patients with medicines from her horse cart until, in 1900, she laid the foundation for what would become the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore. It was dedicated to the education and treatment of women.
CMC Vellore went on to become the largest Christian hospital in the world and one of the premier medical colleges in South Asia.
Her work was widely recognized and hailed. In 1928, the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi honored Ida and CMC with a visit.
In 1945, the college was opened to men as well as women.
In 1960, Rajendra Prasad, then President of India, hailed her as a “great lady whose dedication and planned working are exemplary.” In 2000, the Indian government issued a postage stamp honoring the institution she founded. A framed copy of the first day cover occupies an honored place on my office wall.
