Ruth A. Parmelee
Ruth Azniv Parmelee (1892-1992, OC 1914) was a leader in medicine as a Christian missionary and a witness to the Armenian Genocide. Born in Turkey, then part of the Ottoman Empire, Parmelee moved to Oberlin at age eleven to attend high school and college. Regarding Oberlin’s influence on her life, she wrote that the college and community reaffirmed her belief in the “high ideals of service to humanity and [led] me to consecrate my life to the missionary course.” After obtaining her M.D. from the University of Illinois in 1912, Parmelee was assigned by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to work as a missionary in the Harpoot region, Turkey, where she trained nurses and established a relief effort to care for 3,000 war orphans. She gave first-hand accounts of the Armenian Genocide, increasing American awareness and funding for medical care. Parmelee then worked for thirty-one years in Greece, helping Greek and Armenian refugees and establishing American Women’s Hospitals in Salonica (Thessaloniki) and Kokkinia. During her time in Greece, she also directed nurse training programs, encouraging refugee women to begin careers in medicine. Parmelee continued to assist refugees in the Palestinian Nuseirat Refugee Camp under the Near East Relief Foundation. Although she helped thousands of people as a pioneer female doctor, her efforts evoke discussions of the controversies surrounding missionary work."I am a pioneer, the first woman doctor to practice medicine in the Harpoot [Turkey] region."
Sources:
Student File (Ruth A. Parmelee), Alumni & Development Records, Box 784, Oberlin College Archives