Renowned for her lifelong work in the medical field in China, where she spent 40 years of her life, Dr. Walter Anne Fearn, ind, died at Berkeley, California, at the age of 60 years on April 28, according to cables received by her many friends in the city. News of her death came as a deep shock to her host of friends of all nationalities living in the city Where she became a famous personality during her many years of residence. Known as "Shanghai's number one lady and hostess," Dr. Fearn had a remarkable career in China before retiring to America a few years ago and during her 40 years in the country she was virtually known throughout the length and breadth of the land. She leaves a number of sisters who reside at St. Louis, Missouri.
The daughter of Col Harvey Washington Walter of Holly Springs in Mississipi, Dr. Fearn, as a young Southern belle, defied the conventions of the times by deciding to become a doctor and after completing her training in 1893, she sailed for China to open up the Women's Hospital in Soochow. Intending to stay for only a year or two she stayed forty, fighting a dramatic battle against ignorance, superstition, filth and disease.
When she first arrived in the country sanitation was unknown and she became appalled as she saw the condition of the masses. Chinese doctors, she has stated in her life story, "My Days of Strength," were not allowed to examine their women patients; frequently not even permitted to see them. Women in childbirth were left to the ungentle ministrations of ignorant midwives and the fear of the "foreign devil doctor" was so great that often Dr. Fearn was summoned to attend a patient when it was too late.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.