Clement Owen

Life

Clement Carrington Owen was born in Virginia in July 1867. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College and studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He was ordained to the ministry in 1894. He then studied medicine at the University of Virginia, qualifying as both a minister and a physician. In 1897 the foreign mission board of the Southern Presbyterian Church appointed him a medical missionary, and he arrived in Korea in November 1898.

Shortly after his arrival he joined the Mokpo mission station founded by Eugene Bell. In 1900 he married Georgiana Whiting, a Northern Presbyterian medical missionary, in Seoul. In December 1904 he moved to Gwangju with the Bell family and helped open the Gwangju mission station. In March 1909, while visiting the churches of Jangheung, the part of his field farthest from Gwangju, he contracted acute pneumonia. He was brought back to Gwangju for treatment but did not survive. Most sources give the date of his death as April 3, although one research presentation gives March 31. He was buried in the missionary cemetery in Yangnim-dong, Gwangju. After his death, his widow remained in Gwangju with their four children and continued her ministry there until 1919.

Ministry and Achievements

• Medical mission: Owen began practicing medicine in Mokpo and treated some 400 patients over several months in 1899. The Mokpo clinic he opened is described as the first Western-style clinic in South Jeolla Province. The congregation of the Mokpo church grew to 75 by the summer of 1900, and researchers consider his medical mission work a major factor in that growth.
• Itinerant evangelism: From around 1901 he concentrated chiefly on itinerant pastoral ministry. After moving to Gwangju, he was responsible for more than ten counties in the southern and southeastern parts of South Jeolla Province, traveling through Haenam, Wando, Boseong, Naju, Goheung, and other areas to plant and care for churches. Songjeong-ri Church in Gwangju County (now Songjeong Central Church) and Gwansan-ri Church on Yaksan Island in Wando (now Yaksan First Church) are cited as churches connected with his ministry. He is said to have placed particular importance on conversing with Koreans in village guest rooms (sarangbang).

Influence on the Korean Church

• Owen Memorial Hall: During his lifetime Owen hoped to erect a building in honor of his grandfather, William L. Owen, but was unable to do so. After his death, family and friends in the United States sent contributions, and in 1914 a memorial hall honoring both men was built in Yangnim-dong, Gwangju. The two-story gray brick building is notable for a floor that slopes toward a pulpit set in one corner. It served as an educational and cultural venue for the Gwangju area. On May 7, 1998, it was designated Gwangju Metropolitan City Tangible Cultural Property No. 26.
• Leprosy relief: According to accounts, when fellow missionary Wiley Forsythe heard that Owen was critically ill and set out from Mokpo, he brought with him a leprosy patient he had met on the road. Owen had already died by the time he arrived, and Owen's widow gave her husband's bed to the patient and began caring for him. Historian Song Hyun-kang explains that this incident prompted the Southern Presbyterian missionaries to take up leprosy relief actively, a ministry that later developed into Aeyangwon.

Assessment

Church bodies and researchers in the Presbyterian tradition regard Owen, together with Eugene Bell, as one of those who laid the foundations of the mission in Gwangju and South Jeolla. His district was far larger than those of other missionaries, and his physical constitution was weak. He nonetheless kept up a grueling pace, and many hold that this overwork led to his death. The years 1907 and 1908 are considered the most active period of his ministry. Fellow missionaries who visited his district after his death are said to have been astonished at its growth.

Some church publications and introductory accounts describe his death from illness as "martyrdom," whereas researchers generally describe it as "death in the line of duty." In addition, some studies apply the epithet "the first Western physician in Jeolla" to fellow medical missionary Drew (known in Korea as Yu Dae-mo). Accordingly, claims that Owen was the "first" in various respects differ from source to source.