DUNKLE, BENN

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Saturday, April 26, 2014 at 05:37:08 :

San Rafael Independent
Friday, May 20, 1927
Page 6

Retired Missionary of Novato Called by Death

On May 4, 1927, after a brief illness. which occurred during a visit at the home of her sister, Dr. Rachel Benn-Dunkle, wife of Peter Snyder Dunkle of Novato, passed to her reward. So closed a record of world service.

Upon her graduation from Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa., she entered the foreign missionary field under the Methodist Episcopal board. At Shantung, China, her first station, she organized the Shantung College Hospital and remained its active chief for twenty years.

In the thick of the worst scenes of the Boxer rebellion she followed the armies, where emergency hospitals were needed, and by her bravery and impartial care of American marines and foreign troops alike won a decoration from the then emperor of China.

Dr. Dunkle retired from the foreign field in 1907 and late in life married her former classmate, Peter S. Dunkle of Novato. Mr. Dunkle was in Avalon at the time of her sudden death.

The years between 1907 and 1927 Dr. Dunkle occupied with lecturing and literary work. Her novel, “Ping Kua,” is best known, but she also contributed to several magazines on Chinese art, whose significance was a subject of research for her and her monographs accepted as final authority.

It would be slighting Dr. Dunkle’s greatest activity to underestimate her varied labors in these later years in church and missionary circles. She was ever willing and happy to give of her time and talent. As late as 1925 she lectured at Novato Community House and there also exhibited some of her collection of art objects.

Richly talented though she was, her chief virtue was her willingness to pass on her fund of things worth while. A gentlewoman and an ardent Christian character, Dr. Rachel Benn-Dunkle has enriched the world wherever she has come in contact with it.