First Nurse in Bahrain - in Modern Healthcare  

An English-born, Australian-educated, Baghdad-experienced, young nurse came to serve in Bahrain in 1896. 

As a pioneer, she spearheaded the growth of the nursing profession in this region. 

But let us go back, another 30 years, to read her story from the very beginning.

Amy Wilkes was born in 1865 in Wolverhampton, England, but her family moved to Sydney, Australia. She passed her nursing course, in 1888, from Prince Alfred Hospital’s Training School for Nurses in Sydney.

Deeply inspired by an article, Marching Orders, written by Frances Ridley Havergal, Amy made a personal decision to serve as a Christian missionary nurse. She said she would go wherever God would send her. She joined CMS, a missionary society, that was then placing doctors and nurses in many countries.

CMS posted this 'registered nurse', with her friend Alice, in the city of Baghdad in Mesopotamia (now called Iraq). And it was here that Amy met an American young man, who was visiting Baghdad, from Bahrain. His name was Samuel Zwemer.

Since 1893, Samuel Zwemer had been running a small clinic, dispensary and bookshop in Manama Souq. He was the co-founder-and-worker in the Arabian Mission which had its registered office in New York. 

And Zwemer used to visit Basra and Baghdad to exchange reports with James Cantine, his friend and co-founder of the same mission, who was running a clinic in Basra, Mesopotamia.

Samuel Zwemer was also trying to get his organisation to start a full-fledged hospital in Bahrain.

Amy Wilkes - the British-Australian Nurse who married Samuel Zwemer, the American missionary and founder of the American Mission Hospital

Amy was happy to know that this handsome young American could speak Arabic well, and could teach her. And Samuel Zwemer was happy too, when he found out that Amy was also a Christian missionary like him, and that she was also committed to serving Christ, by serving others.

More importantly, perhaps, he immediately knew that she would be ideal, not only as his wife but also as his helper, in his mission of offering healthcare and education, in the region. 

But Amy Wilkes could not marry him easily. With her contract with CMS, she could not leave her job or her organization. The organization must be compensated for the costs of her travels, and for the costs of recruiting her replacement.

So, Samuel Zwemer raised enough funds to pay for the necessary costs, and in a true oriental and Arab fashion, paid the bride-price to marry her.

On 18 May 1896, they were married at the British Consulate in Baghdad.

18 May 1896. Amy Wilkes and Samuel Zwemer were married in Baghdad's British Consulate

Once they arrived in Bahrain, they began treating many patients together, from their dispensary and clinic in Manama Souq.

Later, in 1900, an American doctor-couple, the Thoms, arrived in Bahrain, which was really an answer to Samuel Zwemer’s prayers. 

And, together, after purchasing land with permission from the then Hakim of Bahrain, Shaikh Isa bin Ali, they built the Mason Memorial Hospital, that began serving in 1902, but formally opened on 26 January 1903. 

It is now called the American Mission Hospital, and Amy Wilkes Zwemer had served here for many years, and trained her many successors. 

Sadly, however, the Zwemers lost two of their small children in Bahrain, to a Cholera epidemic. And the two children, Amy Katherina and Ruth, are buried in Bahrain, in the Christian Cemetery, on the Zubara Avenue, in the Gudaibiya - Hoora area. 

After a few years, she moved with her husband to Cairo, Egypt. Then they went onto New Jersey, USA where, in 1930, when her husband had accepted a position as a professor at Princeton University's Princeton Theological Seminary.

The first all-girls school she opened in Bahrain was called ‘The Acorn School.’  It later became known as the American Mission School. Today, it is called the 𝗔𝗹 𝗥𝗮𝗷𝗮 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹. and has recently celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Despite other heavy responsibilities, she wrote three books about Arab life and customs for children. One book, Topsy Turvy Land: Arabia Pictured for Children, co-authored with her husband, was a classic, which effectively introduced Arabia to the young people of the western world.

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Nurse Amy Wilkes Zwemer and Dr Samuel Zwemer's first family portrait, with daughter Amy Katherina, born in 1897. 
Sadly, Amy Katherina died when was barely 7 years old, during a Cholera epidemic in Bahrain in 1904.
Her 5 year old younger sister Ruth also succumbed to the same disease.
Their deaths were just 'one week' apart.

Picture of the first missionaries in Bahrain and the region.

Children of the Zwemers.
The oldest girl is Amy Katherina (behind) who died in Bahrain in 1904.
One of the other sisters, Ruth also passed away, due to the same disease Cholera.
The youngest in the picture is a boy, Raymond Lull (front, centre). 
The little boy gew up to become a professor at Harvard University Medical School and Columbia  University, received a Guggenheim Fellowship to research in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1941. He was a science advisor at the U.S. Department of State, and chief of the science division at the Library of Congress.

The grave of the two daughters of Amy Wilkes, in Bahrain.
Both died just one week apart.

Amy Wilkes Zwemer's Obituary, which was published in the New York Times, on 26 January 1937

Amy Wilkes Zwemer's grave, in Holland, Michigan, USA

Sources: 

1. Field Reports and Quarterly Letters of Arabian Mission, Vol. 1, 1892-1901

2. Neglected Arabia, No. 178, Jan-March 1937, Page 3-4

3. Hope College's Joint Archives of Holland, Theil Research Center, Holland, Michigan, USA

4. The New York Times, 26 January 1937, New York, USA