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Description area
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History
Mary Alfretta "Retta" Gifford (1864-1942) was born on May 11, 1864 in Meaford, Ontario. She graduated in Medicine from Trinity Medical College. She went to Szechwan, China in 1893, the first woman medical missionary sent by the Woman’s Missionary Society (WMS). Upon her arrival in Shanghai, she became acquainted with Dr. Kilborn and got engaged to him shortly thereafter. They were married in Chengtu in 1894. Family duties took much of her time so that she severed her relationship with WMS after a year’s term. Nevertheless, she continued to serve. She founded a hospital for women and children and during her practice became aware of footbinding and the injuries it caused. Together with two other women, she sought to have it banned and lived to see the day when it was abolished by law. It is acknowledged that her greatest contribution to the mission field was the treatment of children’s diseases. The hospitals founded by the Kilborns, where they also served as members of the teaching staff, were the teaching hospitals of the Faculty of Medicine of the WCUU. Dr. Gifford Kilborn was also her husband’s coworker. She assisted him especially in the operating room. After her husband’s death, she returned to West China under the Methodist Board of Missions and much later was transferred to the Woman’s Missionary Society working as staff at the Faculty of Medicine and the Canadian Mission Hospital for Women and Children until her retirement in 1933. Dr. Retta Kilborn died in Toronto in 1942. The Kilborns had four children, Leslie Gifford, Constance Ellen, Cora Alfretta and Roland Kenneth all of whom served in China in various capacities.