Mattie Wilcox Noble

Life

Mattie Wilcox Noble was born in 1872 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. At Wyoming Seminary she met William Arthur Noble (1866–1945), whom she married in 1892. That same year her husband was appointed a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church to Korea, and she accompanied him. He is reported to have arrived in Korea in October 1892.

For the next forty-two years, until 1934, she lived in Seoul, Pyongyang, and the surrounding region of Gyeonggi Province, including Suwon. She died in 1956. Her eldest daughter, Ruth, married Henry Dodge Appenzeller, the eldest son of Henry Appenzeller, founder of the Paichai School, and the couple continued missionary and educational work in Korea.

Ministry and Achievements

Her husband served for many years as a district superintendent in Seoul, Pyongyang, Suwon, and other areas. In Methodism, a district superintendent oversees the churches of a given district. During this period Mattie Noble assisted her husband and was chiefly responsible for evangelism and education among women. At Namsanhyeon Church in Pyongyang, she began a women's Bible study group and a children's Sunday school. These are reported to have been the first women's Bible study group and the first children's Sunday school in Korea.

The Korean Bible women (female church workers responsible for evangelism) who worked alongside her became an important channel for the mission. According to research, these women set an example of husbands and wives ministering together, of women assuming leadership, and of itinerant evangelism in rural areas. They also founded churches and worked to educate and enlighten women.

Books she published in Korea during her lifetime include Eomeoni-e daehan gangdo (Sermons on Mothers, 1916), Jamo gwonmyeon (Exhortations to Mothers, 1921), and Seungni-ui saenghwal (The Victorious Life, 1927).

Mission Journal

Noble kept a detailed journal of her missionary life from 1892 to 1934. It was translated into Korean and published as Noble Ilji 1892–1934 (The Noble Journals, 1892–1934). The journal records scenes from the early church, such as a visit to Dongdaemun Church in March 1893, and describes in detail the daily life of a missionary household.

Influence on the Korean Church

Her women's Bible study and children's Sunday school are counted among the earliest instances of the education of laywomen and the religious education of children in the Korean Methodist Church. Her journal serves as a source for the study of the early Korean Methodist Church and its missionary community, because it reveals the everyday realities of the mission field and the activities of Korean co-workers that are seldom visible in official reports.

Assessment

Scholars regard Noble's journal as a personal record distinct from official documents, noting that it candidly expresses impressions and opinions that are difficult to find in reports or letters sent to the mission board. One study reads in the journal the life of a "missionary wife" as distinct from that of her missionary husband or of single women missionaries, encompassing matters such as childbirth and child-rearing, illness and death, housekeeping, and the hosting of guests.

The same study argues that Noble understood her role according to the Victorian values of the Anglo-American middle class of her time. These values regarded the home and children as "woman's sphere" and held that a wife, though equal to her husband as a person, had a role limited to helping him.

Another study focuses on the network of relationships surrounding Noble. It contends that the support of her family and hometown, cooperation among missionaries across denominational lines, and her relationships with Korean Bible women formed the foundation for sustaining and expanding the mission work.