User:Ronyanbu/Mary cookingham

Mary Gladys Cookingham was born 10 Jul 1894 in Chautauqua County, NY and died 10 Jun 1978 at Santa Barbara, California.

Mary Cookingham taught from 1922 to 1948 at Yenching University (now Beijing University) near Peking, China. She was held prisoner during WW II at the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center (Weihsien is now known as Wei Xian or Weifang) in Shandong Province, China. Eric Liddell, "the Flying Scotsman" portrayed in the 1981 movie "Chariots of Fire", was held at the same time at the Weihsien Center, where he died in Feb. 1945.

Mary was repatriated with a group of several hundred Americans and Canadians from Japanese controlled civilian internment camps to the U.S. in 1943. The categories of civilians included in the lists submitted by the Allies to the Japanese were: people imprisoned by the Japanese; people compelled to miss evacuation in the national interest; experts and technicians, missionaries, wives and families of the above categories, together with other women and children; the aged and infirm. All categories had equal priority. Mary was included in the second group of civilian internees to be repatriated and this group included a number of civilians from Hong Kong. The group of civilians travelled on the Japanese vessel "Taia Maru" to Marmagao (Goa) in Portugese India, where they were exchanged for a group of Japanese civilians who had traveled to Goa from the U.S.

Upon arrival in Goa in October 1943, the Allied civilians expressed their thankfulness for having escaped from the semi-starvation of their internment camps, as well as their anxiety for the health of those left behind in Japanese custody. Mary's group boarded the charted Swedish ship MS (Mercy Ship) Gripsholm and departed from Goa on October 22, 1943 and traveled via the Southern Atlantic. They arrived in New York City on December 1, 1943. The information they provided upon arrival gave urgency to negotiations with Japan for further civilian exchange agreements but in spite of unceasing negotiation, this was the second and the last group of Allied civilians to be repatriated from Japanese custody until the liberation of the Philippines in February 1945.

The Weihsien Center was liberated on August 17, 1945 by OSS Unit 101, a seven-man "DUCK MISSION". The American liberators set out the day after the Japanese Emperor capitulated -- intent on preventing the massacre of Allied prisoners in Japanese internment camps across Asia. The OSS Unit parachuted from a B-24 bomber to liberate Weishen. Jim Moore, a member of OSS Unit 101, had graduated from the Chefoo School in the 1930s. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Jim read in the school's alumni magazine that the Chefoo School had been captured and interned by the Japanese. He resigned from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he was a Special Agent, joined the U.S. Navy and the Office of Strategic Services, went to China, and signed on to the rescue mission. Located in China's Shantung province, the Chefoo School educated the children of missionaries in China before WW II. The 1,500 Allied civilian prisoners in Weihsien included Jim Moore's teachers and classmates from the Chefoo School.

Mary Cookingham returned to work at Yenching University after WW II and stayed there until 1948, when she returned to the U.S. for good. She worked in 1949 at the Gum Moon Women's Residence Hall for Chinese girls in San Francisco. Gum Moon was founded in 1868 and is located at 940 Washington Street. Begun as a ministry by women of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, Gum Moon enjoys a continuing relationship today as a project of the National Division of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.

She married Vernon Nash in 1958 after she had retired and they lived in Santa Barbara, California. Vernon was a widower and Mary had known him during the years that she worked in China.

Mrs. Mary Cookingham Nash died in Santa Barbara on June 10, 1978. Mary's younger sister, Clarice Ruth Cookingham, also lived in Santa Barbara in retirement. Clarice died three months later on September 17, 1978 at Santa Barbara.

The SS Gripsholm was built by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. of Newcastle. The Swedish-America Line's ship Gripsholm was launched in 1924. She made her maiden voyage from Gothenburg to New York on 21 November 1925. During almost all of World War II, she was used by the International Red Cross. She returned to the Gothenburg-New York service in 1946, and underwent a major refitting in 1950. On February 1, 1954, she made her initial Bremerhaven-New York voyage for the Bremen-American Line, a joint effort of Swedish American and Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL). NDL took over the Gripsholm completely in January 1955, and renamed her Berlin. The Gripsholm remained in NDL's service until she was scrapped in 1966.