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A brief and incomplete biography of Mabel:
Here is our only (as far as I know) picture of Mabel.  She looks very conventional to me.  Looks can be so deceiving.
Mabel was born on January 12, 1884, in South Chicago, Illinois, the first child of the Reverend Thomas W. Woodside and his wife, Emma.  A younger sister, Frances, was born a few years later.  I think the Woodsides must have been reasonably well-to-do, and they probably lived a comfortable life in Chicago.  But in 1888, the Reverend Thomas and Emma gave up that life to become missionaries in Africa, taking their two small daughters with them.  They were sent to Angola - or anyway, to what is now Angola - and another daughter, Ruth, was born around 1891.  The Woodsides are mentioned in a missionary magazine in 1893, which was answering a “What will you see if you go?” sort of question:


As we enter the enclosure we shall have a warm welcome from Mr. and Mrs. Stover, who came here in 1882, from Mrs. Webster, who came with her now sainted husband in 1887, and from Mr. and Mrs. Woodside, who followed in 1888.  Helen Stover and Mabel, Frances, and Ruth Woodside will add the brightness of healthful and happy childhood to the scene.


Of course, the children eventually had to be sent home for proper schooling, like British children in India who were sent back to England for school lest they grow up too native.  I don’t know when Mabel came back to the US; in particular, I don’t know whether it was before or after the birth in 1896 of her younger brother, Wilfred Livingstone Woodside.   (Were the Woodsides admirers of Dr. David Livingstone, a famous missionary and explorer in Africa of a previous generation?)  At any rate, the 1900 census found Mabel and Frances, but not Ruth, in Oberlin, Ohio, living with their aunt and attending school.  My notes tell me that Mabel enrolled in Oberlin as a senior academy student in 1902, and was classed as a Freshman in 1903.

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Mabel and Fred meet and marry

It was at Oberlin College that Mabel met Fred.  Fred, always interested in travel and adventure, and possibly also rather interested in becoming a missionary, would have been very much interested in Mabel’s childhood experiences in Africa.  Mabel may have liked Fred’s curiosity and his non-judgmental views about people who were different from him.  The missionary society viewed white civilization as superior, but Mabel may have had a different attitude from having lived as a child among the native Africans.  This is not something I know, but I don’t see how she and Fred could have had any sort of relationship if she hadn’t shared some of his non-judgmental views.

Mama Margaret, Fred’s mother, thoroughly approved of Mabel, writing in a letter in the spring 1909 when she heard of Fred's and Mabel's engagement: 

Fred has made a good choice.  Of all the girls I know I can’t think of any one I would prefer or I think would make a better wife than Mabel.  She is so sensible and can do so many things and does so many many thoughtful things for others.

Mabel graduated from Oberlin College with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1907, and did some graduate study there.  She and Fred both went to the American Medical Missionary College in Battle Creek, Michigan.  Mabel finished her time there before Fred did, and she returned to Africa as a medical missionary in autumn of 1910, while Fred was still studying to become a doctor.

She must have gone to Portugal first, as was required of new missionaries to Angola, because Angola was part of Portuguese West Africa at the time and missionaries were required to learn Portuguese.  Fred's brother Will got married in 1911, and we have a mention of Mabel in a letter from the new wife:

It certainly was dear of Mable to send me the centerpiece.  I am very fond of Maderia embroidery, the fact of it coming from such a distance and from Fred’s sweetheart makes it very precious: I will write Mable very soon.

I figure Mabel bought the Madeira embroidery while she was in Lisbon and had it available to send as a wedding present when something was needed.  As Mama Margaret said, Mabel was sensible and thoughtful.

She went on to Africa, and she sent many letters to Fred, but unfortunately for Fred, many of the letters were in a ship that sank, so that for quite some time he didn’t hear from her.  But other letters came through, including notes on the local language, Umbundu, though she noted that he would need to be there in Africa, listening to the language, in order to get it right.  I figure she learned the language as a child, as Curtis MacDowell, a later missionary child, did.

Eventually Fred completed his training.  In 1912 his application to the missionary society was accepted, and he went to Africa, where he and Mabel were married.

Mabel’s disease

​Unfortunately, Mabel became ill.  Apparently she was ill very early in the marriage; years later her mother wrote

Poor, dear Mabel was too ill take care of the home she so longed for.

In late 1914 she came back with her mother to the United States, hoping to get better there.  She may have gotten better, but she never was completely well again, because she had tuberculosis.  Fred came back to the US in 1915.  Fred and Mabel lived in Massachusetts near Fred’s older sister Alma, to whom Fred was particularly close.

There was no cure for tuberculosis at the time.  It was a famously fatal disease.  Off-hand, the real-life TB victims I can think of are Henry David Thoreau and Doc Holliday, and the fictional victims are two opera heroines and Ruby Gillis in the Anne of Green Gables books.  The cure was forty years in the future.  Even today, in the twenty-first century, there is no quick fix for tuberculosis, and public health officials are very careful about it.

So the Stokey and Woodside families knew the prognosis was bad, but when tuberculosis was carefully managed, it was a slow-moving disease.  Mrs. Woodside lived with Fred and Mabel most of the time, taking care of Mabel.  Mama Margaret noted in a letter to Eva in October 1915:

I received a letter from Mabel this A.M.  She is back in a Sanatarium again she said not because she was worse but it was a choice between that and a boarding house for a few months while her father and mother were making their visit in the west.
In the spring of 1916, Mabel’s father visited Savannah.  Will (widowed by now) was assigned there at the time, and was living with Mama Margaret and with his three-year-old daughter Margaret.  Mr. Woodside spent some time with them, and may even have stayed with them.  Mama Margaret wrote to Alma:

This morning Margaret asked “How are you going to get along without Mr. Wood?”  She called Mr. Woodside, Mr. Wood most of the time and seemed to like him very much.  I don’t know why she should have asked that this morning as we were not saying anything about him.

And then:

I don’t remember whether I told you that Mr. Woodside spoke at a colored Congregational Church Wednesday night he was here.  He also spoke to the students at the Beach School, where the Rowland family have charge.  He took his suitcase of curios down to show them.

(The Beach School was originally established in 1867 by the Freedmen’s Bureau.)

In Massachusetts, the Stokeys got to know Mabel’s younger brother Wilfred.  He attended the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which later became the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  He was planning to take up farming in Africa.  I can imagine Alma the botanist taking a particular interest in the project, and dreaming up excuses to go to Africa and see Wilfred’s farm in the future.  I wonder if going to Africa sounded to Mabel like going home.

Mabel’s sister Frances married Loyd Shaw (yup, Loyd not Lloyd) on August 11, 1916, in Northfield, Massachusetts.  Mama Margaret was visiting Fred and Mabel at the time, and helped with the sewing before the wedding.

In the spring of 1917, Mama Margaret, visiting Will and Kathleen and Cincinnati for the birth of their son, wrote to Alma:

I cooked or baked rice today.  Mrs. Woodside’s recipe and it was fine and enjoyed it very much.  I think you would like it as it has pimientos in it.  I think she would cook some for you if she has not already had some when you were there.

So the Stokeys and the Woodsides got along well together.
Mabel’s sister-in-law Margaret Clarke Stokey - the wife of Fred’s brother Will - had introduced Christian Science into the Stokey family, and Margaret’s death in childbirth in 1912 did not deter those who were attracted by this new religion.  The youngest sibling, Eva, converted at Will’s encouragement, and Mama Margaret was interested.  She wrote to Eva in March 1916:

I have not heard from Fred since I asked him to go to the Wednesday meeting.  I sent him the March journal, to read the article “What is a treatment” also a testimony in it the healing of tuberculosis.

Fred was non-judgmental, and felt that anything that improved a patient’s attitude was good.  Mabel apparently showed more interest in Christian Science than Fred did.  Who can blame her?  She was a medical professional, and she was sensible.  She knew it would take a miracle to cure her - and, since she was religious, the idea of a miracle might not have sounded utterly outlandish to her.  Her thank you to Will’s second wife Kathleen in January 1917 for a Christian Science book seems to have been sincere:

I am so proud and happy to own another of the leaders works, and I thank you and Will very, very much.  We are all enjoying the reading of it.  Mother Woodside gave me The First Church of Christ S. + Miscellany so I have three of the set.

Mabel went to visit Eva in Philadelphia sometime in March or April of 1917, which suggests that she was feeling as well as one could when dealing with tuberculosis.  Kathleen, hearing of the planned visit, wrote to Eva in April:

I am so glad that Mabel is able to visit you, for I know she will be encouraged + benefited by being with you.  You are such a cheery individual.  Please give her our love.

Mabel was back home by April 22, when she wrote to congratulate Kathleen on the birth of a son:

The grand good news reached us last evening, and words just can’t tell you how happy we are for you.  We are proud to have as a nephew a little Patriot - you know last Thurs. Apr 19 is a holiday in Mass. - Patriots Day.

Alma was over today and we had quite a jubilation.

And then two weeks later, on May 6, 1917, Mabel died.  Perhaps Alma’s visit on the 22nd was a sick call.  Of course I keep hoping a letter will turn up with some details of the rapid downturn, but it seems unlikely.  I also keep wondering about that visit to Eva.  As a Christian Scientist, Eva could be callous of the health needs of others.  It seems possible to me that Eva encouraged Mabel to over-exert herself, but I have no actual evidence of that.

Alma, Will, Kathleen, and Mama Margaret did their best to help Fred through his grief.
The Woodsides After Mabel’s Death

I have mentioned that Mabel’s younger brother Wilfred was going to the Massachusetts Agricultural College.  Fred and Alma were well acquainted with him, as was Mama Margaret.   Wilfred was planning to farm in Africa, but it never happened.  He enlisted in the Air Service in 1918.  He attended the School of Aeronautics in Princeton, NJ, and later was transferred to Carruthers Field, Fort Worth, Texas.  There he was killed in an airplane accident while in training.  His instructor was killed immediately, and he died two days later, on October 14, 1918.  I have some of this detail from a letter from Alma.  She cared about Mabel’s brother.

The Woodsides retired to Orlando, Florida.  Fred visited them in 1922.  It was at this time that he was working on returning to Angola, again as a medical missionary, but I don’t know exactly what role the Woodsides played in that.

When Fred became engaged to Sibyl Hosking in Angola, he wrote to the Woodsides to tell them.  Mrs. Woodside responded with a lovely letter in March of 1928.  She also noted:

“I had a Christmas note from Alma.  I’m always sure of one at that time.”

​When Fred and Sibyl came back to America, they went to visit the Woodsides in Eau Gallie, Florida.  Mrs. Woodside’s judgment of Sibyl was: “She is worthy.”
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