Mary Leyburn Junkin

Life

Mary Leyburn was born into a wealthy family in Lexington, Virginia. Her birth date is generally given as January 21, 1866, although some sources give the year as 1865. Her family had close ties to Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. Because these schools did not admit women, however, she attended Augusta Female Seminary in the neighboring city of Staunton, which later became Mary Baldwin University. Korean scholarship sometimes refers to her as "Mary (Marion) Montague Leyburn."

In June 1892 she married William Junkin. Around November of the same year, just five months after her marriage, she arrived in Korea as one of the seven missionaries first sent to the country by the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States. This group is commonly known as the "Seven Pioneers." It included William Reynolds and his wife, Patsy Bolling Reynolds, as well as the single women missionaries Linnie Davis and Mattie Tate.

The Junkins had eight children in Korea, three of whom died there. When her husband died of pneumonia in 1908 at the age of 43, she returned to the United States with her surviving children in April of that year; she was then pregnant with her youngest child. In 1909 the Presbyterian Church in the United States built a house for her in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as part of its support for the families of deceased missionaries. She died on November 2, 1952, and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in her hometown of Lexington.

Ministry and Work

In Korea she worked first in Seoul and later in Gunsan and Jeonju. She learned Korean and taught a Sunday school class for girls. According to a 1903 mission report, seventeen girls were enrolled in the class, with an average attendance of about twelve. In the same report she expressed concern that only boys were being taught to read, and she wrote that she was delighted when another woman missionary opened a school for girls. Around 1902 she is described as having been responsible for instruction at the Melbolden Girls' School in Gunsan.

Influence on the Korean Church

After returning to the United States, she had a bell 90 centimeters (about 35 inches) in diameter cast with the assistance of the American mission board and sent it to Jeonju West Gate Church (Jeonju Seomun Church) in memory of her husband. The wooden bell tower, about 7 meters (roughly 23 feet) tall, which the church members built with their own devoted contributions, still stands at the entrance of the church. In 1952 the governor of North Jeolla Province sent her a letter of appreciation. More than seventy years later, her descendants donated the original letter to the Junkin Memorial Association in Gunsan.

Assessment

She is regarded as one of the first generation of Presbyterian missionaries in the Honam region, and the surviving records attest in particular to her concern for the education of girls. Church historians note, however, that although she and other early women missionaries were no less devoted than their male counterparts, they have received little scholarly attention or have been mentioned only briefly in studies of their husbands' ministries.