Too often the lives, contributions, and legacies of missionary nurses have been ignored in our mission histories. Here I wish to highlight the remarkable ministry and service of Reverend Sister Tutor Dorothy Davis Cook, Church of the Nazarene missionary nurse who served in Swaziland from 1940 to 1972. (1)

Modern nursing began with a call from God. According to Florence Nightingale's own testimony, "On February 7, 1837, God spoke to me and called me to His service." (2) A similar experience awaited the woman who would become known as the Mother of Swazi Nurses. On a Sunday afternoon in September 1928, sixteen-year-old Dorothy Davis heard the voice of God calling her to Africa. The key verse that day was Psalm 2:8--" Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Nightingale did not know that in being obedient to God, she would change the health and well-being of the world. Dorothy did not know that day that her inheritance, her children, would be the Swazi women she raised and trained to be Christian nurses. (3)

Dorothy Fay Davis was born in Hugo, Colorado, on March 29, 1912. Raised in a Christian home, she spent the majority of her childhood in Alhambra, California. She graduated from Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) in 1934. A statement under her senior photo reads, "Pasadena College has given many talented people to the mission field. This year we are proud to have one who has consecrated her life to this cause." (4)

Following her Pasadena years, Davis continued her education at the Nazarene Samaritan Hospital in Nampa, Idaho. Established in 1920 and since closed in 1951, Samaritan Hospital opened for the purpose of preparing nurses for medical missions. Davis graduated from Samaritan in 1938 and then completed her bachelor of science degree at Northwest Nazarene College, also in Nampa. She was appointed to Nazarene missionary service on November 22, 1939. (5)

Swaziland

After six weeks at sea crossing the Atlantic, which was then a World War II battlefield, Davis arrived in Africa on June 4, 1940. Her first year of service was in the north of Swaziland. The village of Endzingini (sometimes spelled Indzingini) is where Harmon Schmelzenbach had first opened the African missionary program of the Church of the Nazarene and where missionary nurse Lillian Cole built the first Nazarene hospital. In addition to seeing clinic patients and caring for orphans, Davis began learning the Zulu language--and the importance of prayer in a missionary's life. (6)

The Swazi had migrated to this region over 300 years earlier. The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small country (6,704 square miles), with the borders determined by the British and Dutch colonialists, the Zulu War, and the Boer War. King Sobhuza II was Ngwenyama (the Lion) of Swaziland from 1921 to 1982, keeping the nation and culture of the Swazi alive. Upon the request of the king, the Nazarene hospital had been...