Ethel Groce was born in 1909 in Troy, Missouri, USA, and completed her schooling there.
From an early age she had a strong desire to serve God, and after completing High School in 1927, she left for Chicago to train as a medical missionary at the Moody Bible Institute. Graduating in 1931 she underwent nursing training at the Presbyterian Hospital and emerged with a RN degree in 1934.
After further training at Rush Medical College, she spent 3 years in private nursing before going out to China with the South China Boat Mission circa 1938.
She was based in Canton on her own boat, the Proclaiming Light, and after learning the Chinese language, spent the next ten years running a clinic, conducting services and preaching the gospel to the Boat People, having groups of women on board and showing them ways to improve themselves and start schools for their children. She taught them how to use her sewing machine to make clothes for their families.
It was a lonely life, often with no contact with other English speakers for months on end, but she won converts to the faith who then assisted her in the work.
These were the years of the Chinese civil war between the forces of Chiang Kai Shek and the Communists, and as the Communists prevailed, so the dangers increased for missionaries in China. In 1947 Miss Groce received a warning that she and her followers would be bombed if they didn’t leave. However she worked on until the autumn of 1949, when she knew she could stay no longer. The Communists were taking over and Christians were fleeing.
At that point she sailed her boat down river to Hong Kong and set up amongst the boat people of Kowloon.
By 1959 the South China Boat Mission had become the Oriental Boat Mission. That year Ethel Groce had a visit from Bob Pierce, founder of the American charity World Vision, who was on a world tour viewing projects his charity was supporting or could potentially support. Miss Groce was known to all as The Boat Lady, and she had an extraordinary workload which had to be seen to be believed:
She ran an inpatient clinic on her boat (now the Gracious Light) 3 days a week, seeing to the milder ailments of 30-40 patients. Those with more serious conditions she referred to a colleague Dr Peter Jenkins. She ran a school 5 days a week, where she taught English; Chinese (Christian) volunteers taught other subjects; grades 1, 2 and 3 in the morning, and 4,5 and 6 in the afternoon. One of her boys went on to attend High School on the mainland and graduated in June of this year (1959). On Sundays together with a Chinese pastor she would hold services morning and evening, on Wednesdays a prayer meeting; then there were Bible classes and classes in subjects like sanitation. Once or twice a week she would return to the mainland by water taxi for provisions and mail.
She retired from this work at the age of 65 in 1974, and back in the USA she married Dr Pak Chue Chan and assisted him with two charitable organisations he had started.
They both then retired from this work in 1978. He died in 1991 and she in 2004, aged 95. She left three adopted Chinese sons and one adopted Chinese daughter.
Sources:
Let My Heart Be Broken – Richard Gehman
Find a Grave.com (with a pic of Ethel Groce Chan).