1900 - Martin & Anna Nyström and Son

July 1900

To Ko To, Inner Mongolia

Martin & Anna Nyström.

Several different groups of Protestant missionaries were slaughtered as they tried to flee the Boxers through the Gobi Desert into Mongolia. Their stories are told elsewhere in this book. The smallest group to suffer martyrdom was that comprising Martin and Anna Nyström, their son, and a Chinese evangelist. The Nyströms, members of the Scandinavian Alliance Mission, were stationed in the present-day Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where they shared the gospel with Chinese and Hui Muslims.

Martin Nyström was born in Björnlunda County, Sodermanland, Sweden, on September 26, 1874. His father was a member of the largest mission organization in Scandinavia, so young Martin grew up being exposed to many missionaries and their inspirational stories. His brother also became a missionary to China, but managed to escape back to Sweden during the Boxer Rebellion. Martin Nyström arrived in China in 1896, aged just 21. One of his co-workers described him as having “a quiet and earnest disposition, faithful in the Master’s service, and of a peaceful nature.”[1] He was stationed in the difficult and isolated Pingluo County in Ningxia, which at the time was part of Gansu Province.

Anna Nyström (née Johanson) was born in the Swedish town of Ostergötland on June 2, 1870. She also commenced her missionary career in China in 1896, with the Christian & Missionary Alliance. Anna met her future husband and the two were married at Guihaozheng. After a brief honeymoon, the Nyströms commenced their ministry together at Pingluo.

After hearing about the dreadful massacre of Christians in Shanxi Province, the Nyströms and a Chinese coworker tried to escape across Inner Mongolia to safety. One report says, “The last that can be traced of them is that (probably by secret orders) they were escorted by the Prince of Aladran’s police far into the Gobi and left to perish in the desert.”[2]

A different account states the group was “overtaken by the Boxers and mercilessly murdered.”[3] The four martyrs perished at a place the Mongolians called To Ko To, about 49 miles (80 km) southwest of Hohhot.

1. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 466.
2. Mildred Cable & Francesca French, George Hunter: Apostle of Turkestan (London: China Inland Mission, 1948), 33.
3. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 466.