Jean Ewen

Jean Ewen (December 24, 1911 - 1987) was a Canadian nurse who worked with Chinese communist soldiers during the 1930s.

Ewen was born in Scotland in 1911, but immigrated with her family to Canada as a child, where they settled in Saskatchewan. Ewen studied nursing in Winnipeg, graduating in 1931.[1] In 1932, she moved to China to work as a medical missionary with the Franciscan Fathers, and learned Mandarin. Following a brief return to Canada in 1937, Ewen accompanied Doctor Norman Bethune when he came to China to offer medical aid to the communist forces, serving as his interpreter and assistant.

Ewen came from a family of communist supporters, but she was opposed to mixing politics and medicine. In her memoir China Nurse 1932–1939, she described the horrors of front-line surgery during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In addition to nursing the wounded, she trained nurses and "barefoot doctors" and taught sanitation, for which the Chinese government awarded her the Silver Shield.[2] Ewen eventually left China, travelling south to Hong Kong, and returned to Canada.

Shortly after her return, she married John Kozar, a friend of her two brothers when they served in the Spanish Civil War. They had two children, Laura and Tom (though Laura was conceived while Ewen was still in China, and was born just after Kozar and Ewen were married).[3] Kozar was killed when his ship was sunk in 1942, and Ewen subsequently married Mike Kovitch in 1946, with whom she had a third child, Michael.

China Nurse, Ewen's memoir, was published in 1981. In later editions, it was called Canadian Nurse in China. Ewen died in 1987, and her ashes were returned to China in 1988.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Portrait of Jean Ewen and a nursing friend, when they graduated from St. Joseph's School of Nursing in 1931", Saskatoon Public Library General Photographs Collection, Biography - Jean Ewen, ID Number PH-98-111"Inmagic DB/Text WebPublisher: 18 records". Spldatabase.saskatoonlibrary.ca. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  2. ↑ "Portrait of Jean Ewen and a nursing friend, when they graduated from St. Joseph's School of Nursing in 1931", Saskatoon Public Library General Photographs Collection, Biography - Jean Ewen, ID Number PH-98-111"Inmagic DB/Text WebPublisher: 18 records". Spldatabase.saskatoonlibrary.ca. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  3. ↑ Grypma, Sonya J. (Spring 2011). "China Nurse Jean Ewen: Embracing and Abandoning Communist Revolutionaries" (PDF). University of the Fraser Valley: Journal of Historical Biography. pp. 37–68. Retrieved 5 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "CBC Digital Archives - 'Comrade' Bethune: A Controversial Hero - Norman Bethune: Nurse Jean Ewen dies, ashes sent to China". Cbc.ca. Retrieved 2014-06-30.

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