1900 - Margaret & Brainerd Cooper

August 1900

Hubei

Margaret Cooper and her little son Brainerd died from injuries received while fleeing from the Boxers.

Among the saddest stories from the Boxer year were the deaths of Mrs. Margaret Cooper and her little baby son, Brainerd. They were part of a group of 14 missionaries and children who fled Lucheng in southern Shanxi Province, hoping to travel almost 1,000 miles (1,620 km) to safety at Wuhan. The fleeing missionaries included two families with a total of six children, and four single ladies. They went through a harrowing experience. One account says,

“Mobs followed them from one village boundary to the next, hurling sticks and stones, shouting, ‘Death to the foreign devils!’ Robbers stripped them of everything but a few rags. Emaciated from hunger and thirst, shoeless, barebacked in the scorching heat, desperately trying to hold up filthy, torn Chinese trousers, they staggered from village to village half alive.”[1]

Somehow, day after day the group trudged on, as Satan vent his fury on them. In one village the people viciously attacked the missionaries. E. J. Cooper was severely beaten and left for dead, covered in blood and bruises. Somehow, he recovered and crawled back to his family’s side. His wife Margaret was unmoved by all the trouble, and told her husband that she wanted return to Lucheng once conditions had improved. Her crushed body did not match her willing spirit, however. On August 6th she was close to losing consciousness. E. J. Cooper turned to his dear wife and said, “Jesus is coming for you.” Margaret replied, “No, I am too strong to die, I just want to rest a little while.”[2] She closed her eyes and entered into her eternal rest. Margaret Cooper passed away at Yingshan in Hubei Province, about 100 miles (162 km) from Wuhan. She had come to China in 1888, and married E. J. Cooper three years later.

Just three days after the survivors arrived at Wuhan, E. J. Cooper laid his little son Brainerd to rest beside the body of his wife. Born On December 30, 1898, the 18-month-old toddler had survived the whole journey only to succumb at the very end, partly due to the deprivation of the experience, but also because his little heart was grieving at the absence of his mother. Somehow, by the grace of God, E. J. Cooper found the courage to write his mother:

“The Lord has honoured us by giving us fellowship in His sufferings. Three times stoned, robbed of everything, even clothes, we know what hunger, thirst, nakedness, weariness are as never before, but also the sustaining grace and strength of God and His peace in a new and deeper sense than before….

Billow after billow has gone over me. Home gone, not one memento of dear Maggie even, penniless, wife and child gone to glory…your son weak and exhausted to a degree, though otherwise well….

And now that you know the worst, Mother, I want to tell you that the cross of Christ, that exceeding glory of the Father’s love, has brought continual comfort to my heart, so that not one murmur has broken the peace of God within.”[3]

1. Hefley, By Their Blood, 25.
2. Glover, A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China, 310.
3. Hefley, By Their Blood, 27.