Florence Lesley Fox

Florence Lesley Fox (died after June 1971) was an American nurse and Christian missionary in the Philippines from 1920 to 1932, serving in Cagayan de Oro with her educator sisters Anna Isabel Fox and Grace Evelyn Fox.

Florence Lesley Fox
A woman in a nurse's uniform, looking down at and holding a baby with dark hair.
Florence Fox with a baby, from a 1922 publication.
RelativesAnna Isabel Fox (sister)
Floyd Olin Smith (brother-in-law)

Early life

Florence Lesley Fox was from Albuquerque, New Mexico,[1] the daughter of Rufus P. Fox and Anna B. Fox. Her father was a builder.[2] She graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1903,[3] and trained as a nurse in Battle Creek, Michigan.[4]

Career
Anna Isabel Fox (left), Florence Fox (right, in nurse's uniform), and four Filipina students, from a 1922 publication.

Fox helped at a mission school in Cubero, New Mexico in 1905.[5] In 1920,[6] Fox followed her sister Anna into missionary work at Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines.[7] Their younger sister Grace Evelyn joined them in 1923.[8][9] Fox acted as a visiting nurse, midwife, and superintendent of nurses at the mission hospital, working with her eventual brother-in-law, physician Floyd Olin Smith.[10] She was also called upon to teach hygiene, sanitation, and music classes, and oversee dormitory provisions, at her sister's school.[11] "I will not allow the hospital to use all my time and strength," she wrote in a published essay in 1922.[12]

Fox spoke about her work to women's church groups during her 1926 leave in the United States.[13][14] She returned to the United States again in 1932, with plans for further medical training in Ohio.[2]

Personal life and legacy

Fox and her sisters moved to California later in life. Florence Fox was alive when her sister Grace died, in Long Beach in 1971.[15] Today the Fox sisters are remembered as noted figures in the history of the United Church of Christ of the Philippines in Cagayan de Oro.[16]

References
  1. "Local Items". Albuquerque Journal. 1926-02-18. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Daughter of R. P. Fox Visits After 5 Years". Albuquerque Journal. 1932-07-29. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Graduates of the University of New Mexico Who Will Receive Their Diplomas Tonight". Albuquerque Morning Journal. 1903-06-04. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Week's Reunion with Classmate Enjoyed by Santa Anan". Santa Ana Register. 1932-07-09. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Local and Personal". U. N. M. Weekly. September 30, 1905. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  6. "College Women to be Foreign Missionaries". Boston Post. 1920-06-22. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Bright Spots in the Picture". The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad. 117: S54. October 1921.
  8. Prieto, Laura R. (2014-10-29). "Bibles, Baseball, and Butterfly Sleeves: Filipina Women and American Protestant Missions, 1900-1930". In Choi, Hyaeweol; Jolly, Margaret (eds.). Divine Domesticities: Christian Paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific. ANU Press. p. 369. ISBN 978-1-925021-95-0.
  9. Prieto, Laura R. (2010-03-19). "'Stepmother America': The Woman's Board of Missions in the Philippines, 1902-1930". In Reeves-Ellington, Barbara; Sklar, Kathryn Kish; Shemo, Connie A. (eds.). Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and the American Protestant Empire, 1812–1960. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-9259-0.
  10. Fox, Florence (July–August 1922). "Field Correspondents". Life and Light for Woman: 290–291 – via Internet Archive.
  11. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1920). Annual Report.
  12. Fox, Florence (October 1922). "Field Correspondents". Life and Light for Woman: 369 – via Internet Archive.
  13. "Newington". Hartford Courant. 1926-05-08. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Churches". Albuquerque Journal. 1926-02-21. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Grace Fox Rites in Long Beach". Albuquerque Journal. 1971-06-26. p. 44. Retrieved 2020-05-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. Sitoy, Valentino T. "History of United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Cagayan de Oro". Heritage Conservation Advocates. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
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