Annie Baird

Life

Annie Baird was born in 1864 in Greensburg, Indiana. She attended Hanover College and later graduated from Washburn College. She then worked for a Christian youth organization in Topeka, Kansas, where she reportedly met William Baird. The two married in 1890, and that same year the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern Presbyterian) appointed them missionaries to Korea. They arrived in Korea in 1891. Her younger brother, James Edward Adams, also later became a missionary to Korea.

From 1891 to 1897 the couple worked at the Seoul, Busan, and Daegu mission stations. While they were in Busan, their first daughter died of cerebrospinal meningitis while William was away on an evangelistic tour of Gyeongsang Province. In 1897 they moved to Pyongyang, where she worked for the rest of her life. She died of cancer in Pyongyang on June 9, 1916. Two of her sons, William Baird Jr. and Richard Baird, also served as missionaries in Korea.

Ministry and Achievements

• Women's ministry and education: During her years in Busan, she invited Korean women into her home to meet with them and teach them. The guest room (sarangbang) of the house the couple made available for the missionaries' Sunday worship and Bible study is said to have been the beginning of Choryang Church in Busan. In Pyongyang she assisted with the work of Soongsil Academy (Soongsil School) while her husband served as its principal, and she started the first Bible training class for women in Pyongyang.
• Hymn translation: She wrote the lyrics of "Meolli Meolli Gatdeoni" ("Far, Far Away I Wandered"), which appeared in Chansyeongsi (1895), the hymnal used by Presbyterian churches in northwestern Korea. The hymn sets newly written Korean words to the tune associated with William McDonald's "I Am Coming to the Cross," and it now appears as No. 387 in the New Hymnal. She is also known to have translated "God Be with You Till We Meet Again" together with fellow missionary Frederick Miller (Min Ro-a). She is credited with establishing the translation principle of fitting lyrics to tunes according to the syllable count and stress patterns of the Korean language.
• Writings: In 1895 she published Saetbyeol jeon (The Story of the Morning Star), an evangelistic storybook in the Korean script illustrated by Gisan Kim Jun-geun. Her English-language works include Daybreak in Korea (1909), a novel portraying the conversion of a Korean woman named Bobae ("Treasure"), and Inside Views of Mission Life (1913). She also produced Korean-language textbooks for newly arrived missionaries.

Influence on the Korean Church

Her hymn "Meolli Meolli Gatdeoni" has been sung in Korean churches for more than a century and is regarded as the most enduring legacy of her ministry. Scholars of the early history of Korean hymnody treat her method of adapting Western hymns to Korean meter as a significant example. Saetbyeol jeon, which presented the gospel through narrative and Korean genre paintings rather than doctrinal exposition, is cited as an example of early literature ministry.

Assessment

At her death, Arthur Brown, secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., reportedly paid tribute to her in his condolences as a wife, mother, evangelist, teacher, author, and translator, describing her as one who had laid the foundations of the Korea mission. A memorial stone in her honor is reported to have been erected on the campus of Soongsil College in Pyongyang. Scholarly attention to date has focused mainly on her hymn translation and literary work, and no widely known criticism of her ministry has been identified.