Ella Dodge Appenzeller

Life

She was born in the United States in 1854. Her father is said to have been George Washington Dodge and her mother Deborah Griswold. On December 17, 1884, she married Henry Appenzeller in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The wedding took place at First Methodist Church of Lancaster, where Henry Appenzeller was a member. That same month Henry Appenzeller was appointed a missionary to Korea, and the couple prepared to leave together for the mission field.

On the morning of Easter Sunday, April 5, 1885, the couple arrived at Chemulpo in Incheon. However, an American diplomat advised them not to land, warning that a coup had just taken place in Korea and that it was too dangerous for a young woman to remain there. As a result, the couple stayed in Japan for a time before returning to Korea. According to one account, when they reached Chemulpo, Henry Appenzeller had his wife step off the ship first.

In Korea the couple had one son and three daughters. In June 1902 her husband, Henry Appenzeller, was killed when his ship collided with another vessel off Eocheong Island while he was traveling to a Bible translation meeting in Mokpo. His body was never recovered. After her husband's death, Ella lived in the United States; a letter she wrote from Lancaster in 1912 to the American author William Elliot Griffis, relating news of her family, survives to this day. She is reported to have died on September 30, 1915, in Wilton, Connecticut, although some Korean sources give the year of her death as 1916. Her grave is reportedly located in Berlin, New York, where a memorial stone honoring her husband is also said to have been erected.

Ministry and Contributions

Ella Dodge Appenzeller belonged to one of the missionary families that arrived in the very first year of Korean Methodist history, coming to Korea with her husband. While her husband founded Pai Chai School (Baejae Haktang) and built up the church at Jeongdong, she managed the missionary household in Seoul. The diary her husband kept during his tour of the southern provinces in 1889 also mentions news of his wife and daughter. Few sources, however, provide specific confirmation of any educational or evangelistic work that Ella undertook on her own.

Influence on the Korean Church

Ella's influence was carried on chiefly through her children. Her eldest daughter, Alice Rebecca Appenzeller, born on November 9, 1885, is said to have been the first child born on Korean soil to a Protestant missionary family. Alice later served as the sixth principal of Ewha Haktang and contributed to the school's development. Her son, Henry Dodge Appenzeller, followed in his father's footsteps as principal of Pai Chai School. In this way the Appenzeller family was connected with Korea's Methodist educational institutions across two generations.

Assessment

Ella Dodge Appenzeller is commonly remembered as one half of the first Methodist missionary couple to enter Korea. Most records concerning her, however, appear only briefly within accounts of her husband's life and family. Consequently, what work she carried out on her own and how it was regarded have not yet been clearly established. The dates of her birth and death, as well as the birth years of her children, also vary slightly among sources, and further verification through primary sources is needed.