Evelyn Estelle Wilkerson, longtime Christian medical missionary in Taiwan (1953 - 1980), dies at age 93 in USA

R.I.P

May she rest in eternal peace with her Lord.

Mrs. Wilkerson, 93, died on December 23, 2011, two days before Christmas, in the USA, following an extended illness. Estelle was born in the USA on 1918.

She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1942 with a B.S. in nursing education. She was a nursing arts instructor in the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in Charlotte from 1942 to 1946, following which she studied Mandarin Chinese at Yale Language School in New Haven Connecticut preparation for the Christian missionary field oversweas.

She married Dr Joseph Leyburn Wilkerson, MD, a surgeon, in 1948, after which they sailed to China as Christian medical missionaries, where they were assigned to Kashing Christian Hospital, southwest of Shanghai.
Estelle returned to the United States the following year because of the war in China.

She and Joseph subsequently traveled to Taiwan, again as Christian medical missionaries, in 1953, where Estelle was active in nursing education at Changhwa Christian Hospital until 1980.

She also engaged in a variety of other types of Christian missionary work, including teaching middle and high school students at Morrison Academy, a Chrstian school in Taichung established for the Christian children of Chrstian missionaries.

She and her husband later served for two years at the Home Mission Hospital in the USA from 1981 to 1983 and went to Pakistan as missionaries for several month in 1984. They permanently retired to the USA in 1985 and moved to Highland Farms in 1999. Joseph died in 2001.

Estelle is survived by a son, Stephen, and a daughter-in-law, Rose, and their three children, Oriane, Cythera and Joseph; a daughter, Nancy, and a son-in-law, Rob, and their two children, Michele and Andrew; a son, Douglas, and daughter-in-law, Kyoko, and their child, Alex; a brother, Donald, a sister, Rebecca, and a son, Donald Joseph, pre-deceased her.
Estelle was loved by everyone who knew her. She was a bright light in some of the brightest places of the world.

A memorial service was held in the USA on January 7.