Beatrice Scott Stevenson

January 9, 1911 – May 12, 2010

                                                                                                From the Stevenson Children

 Mother, Beatrice Elinor Scott, was born in Tsingtao, China on January 9, 1911, the third daughter of Dr. Charles Ernest Scott and Mrs. Clara Heywood Scott.  Two brothers followed, Francis and Ken.  During Mother’s early years, she acquired a stuffed Bunny, which accompanied her everywhere. Beatrice was too formal and unwieldy and needed to be replaced with a Scott nickname. Soon, her siblings began to associate Beatrice with her Bunny, and soon “Bunny” became her lifetime nickname.

 “Bunny” had an idyllic childhood in a loving missionary family.  She attended boarding school in China and in Pyongyang, Korea.  In 1929 she entered the USA to attend Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. There the beautiful young “Bunny” majored in English, rode horses, acted in plays, sang in musicals and was a happy and popular college student. Her graduation picture is on this Bio. In 1933, she enrolled in the New York Biblical Seminary and enjoyed an active social life.

 Her mother’s close friend, Florence Day Stevenson, the wife of Princeton Seminary’s President, Dr. J. Ross Stevenson, invited Mother to spend a weekend with her in Princeton in May of 1934.  Dr. Ted Stevenson “happened” to be home for the weekend from his duties as a surgical resident at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City.  Ted’s mother told Ted to pick up “Bunny Scott” at the Princeton train station (was this planned?) and, lo and behold, Ted was all-of-a-sudden changing all of his plans.  Ted and Bunny were married on September 8, 1934 in the Miller Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary.

 Two months later, they were in Canton, China at the Hackett Medical Center, a Presbyterian Mission Hospital. Ted and Bunny team was the perfect couple, with Ted as Medical Director and chief surgeon and Bunny as the social center for missionaries and Chinese colleagues. The first two Stevenson boys, Don and David, were born in 1935 and 1937.  The Japanese began to bomb Canton in 1937 and occupied the city in 1938. However, the USA was then neutral, and fearless Bunny went fresh-food shopping with her Chinese cook everyday to protect her cook from the soldiers.  Ted actually had Japanese officers as his patients, and they all seemed to be able to coexist reasonable well. Many years later, Bunny reflected that these five years were the happiest of her life.

 In 1939, the family returned to the USA for their regular furlough, .After a year, Father and Mother were ready to return to Canton for their second tour. However, the U.S. State Department refused to issue passports to women and children.  Father then signed a one year contract as physician for a mining company in Ishpeming, Michigan.  Bill was born there on June 27, 1940.  Father finished his contract by September 1941 but the State Department was still nervous about the Japanese. Father decided to go by himself, since Hackett had no surgeon and desperately needed him.  Mother and the boys would come later when this “Japanese thing blew over.”  Retrospectively, we now know that the State Department was correct, for Father spent the next 3 ½ years in the Santo Thomas prison camp in Manila,  Philippines.  Typically, Mother made the most of a difficult situation.  She moved her little boys in with her sister Helen and her brother–in-law Gordon Mahy in Montreat, North Carolina.  A big, happy clan evolved, and Bunny kept up her spirits, and her children’s spirits, with her positive attitude despite her long separation from her beloved Ted. Her brother Laddie and his family joined in the family clan and Bunny’s support system flowered.

 Father returned from the War in March, 1945.  The family moved to Media, Pennsylvania, while Father completed another residency in general surgery.  Dorothy arrived in 1946 and our happy parents enjoyed an American dream in suburbia.  However, the call of world missions was too urgent to resist, and, in 1955, Father became the Medical Director for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, with headquarters in New York City. The family moved to Rye, New York and later Tenafly, NJ.  Robert was born in 1956.  Mother and Father, and Dorothy and Rob traveled extensively to Mission hospitals around the world.

 Their first retirement was to North Carolina, where the Mahy and Scott clans and Brother Don were already located.  This was another very happy time with Bunny in her element as friend to all and with multiple projects and family reunions to keep her busy and connected.

 Because of the cold winters, their second retirement was to Westminster Gardens, Duarte, California, in 1986, where they had a lovely 2-bedroom house and lots of retired missionary friends whom they knew from all over the world.  “The Gardens” was a bee-hive of activity, with many plays, choruses, intellectual lectures and lots of social activities.  Mother continued her gardening activities which were now perennial.  Again, Mother was in her element. Three of her children and her niece, Carol Roberts, and multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren were close enough for frequent family gatherings.  Her dear brother Laddie and his wife Helen moved to the “Gardens” and became a major part of her social network.  This arrangement lasted until 1999, when Father died at the age of 95.  Although missing her Ted enormously, as usual, Mother made the best of it, continuing her interests and friendly interactions with her friends at the Gardens.  In 2002, she moved into Shu Lodge, an intermediate- care nursing facility, in Westminster Gardens, where she received expert and kindly care from the nurses and where she ate her meals in the dining room.  Her idea of a good meal was where there was good conversation; and everyone loved this friendly, outgoing, interesting and charming lady.  She continued to come to La Jolla, California for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays to be with her “boys.”  Well into her 90s, she drove her car locally and traveled by train to San Diego.  A “kindly young man” would always put her suitcase in the rack above her seat on the train.

 In 2008, Mother began to have transient ischemic attacks but could still go to the dining room and keep up with her extensive network of friends. However, in October 2009, she experienced a paralyzing stroke, which confined her to bed in her apartment at Shu Lodge. She received superior nursing care.  But, as she began to slip away, son Billy and his wife Carolyn (who retired from her position as a Hospice nurse to care for Mother) took her into their home in San Diego.  She was with her family members when on May 12, 2010, she left this world to join her Ted and her other family members in Heaven. Mother left behind numerous family members, who are gathered here today, and more friends than most of us would ever dream of having.  At her memorial service at Westminster Gardens on June 5th, 70 people were there to share in the celebration of her life, among them were Mary (one of the servers in the dining room) and the head nurse, Carol Weaver RN.  Today, in North Carolina, we are gathered to say our good-byes to this incredible woman, who touched so many lives with her love, her positive spirit, friendliness and charm. We are better people because of her life and the example she set.

 What richer legacy can one woman have given?