Excerpted from an essay by Pastor Clinton Macomber

 

 

Before she was twenty, she had contributed poems to their local paper of great literary merit, and attracted the attention of a well-known ladies school in Utica.

 

In June 1844, under her penname as “Fanny Forrester,” that she wrote for the prestigious “New Mirror” weekly entertainment magazine. The editorial praise she received and her witty stories of village life brought her a wide public audience, and soon other popular magazines were asking for her work.

 

On June 2, 1846, Emily was 28 and became married to Adoniram Judson. The Baptists believed that the whole missionary cause was being destroyed by the alliance of a founder and the world of fiction.

 

On July 11, 1846, they left the United States from Boston, with some new missionaries. The trip took 139 days to reach Burma. 

 

On February 15, 1847, the couple with the two little boys moved to a brick house. Emily quickly named it the “Bat Castle.” The house had just a few tiny “windows” with metal shutters, to protect it from being burned by the natives. The little windows did not have glass either.  The ceilings were low and with the many beams, provided ample space for multiplied thousands of bats, which make disturbing noise during the day but at night the noise was unbearable. Their only protection was the mosquito nets at night. 

 

But the bats were only one element of the inhuman conditions. There were hordes of cockroaches, beetles, spiders, lizards, rats, ants, mosquitoes, and bedbugs. Trying to write was done by expecting to have about 20 little bugs on the page!

 

At one point they begged for literally anything to eat from their helpers, to keep from starving to death. They were given a delicious meal, but could not guess what it was from the bones, and the very little meat on them. No one would say what it was, but just laughed when questioned. They finally found out it was rats, a Chinese delicacy.

 

They took the house of another missionary family where were away, and he applied his full efforts to finishing the massive Burmese and English dictionary.

 

In 1849, Mrs. Judson’s health declined. She refused to eat, and the baby became very ill. Their help left at that time as well.

 

On Apr. 3, 1850, the dying missionary was carried on board a ship. Delays kept it from sailing until the 8th. On the 12th Judson was dead and buried at sea.

On Apr. 22, 1850, she gave birth to Charles, but he died the same day.

 

Finally, exhausted and ill, Emily left Burma on Jan. 22, 1851, with the three children. They arrived in Boston in October, and settled at Hamilton, New York with her elderly parents and children. She spent the winter of that year (1851-1852) in Providence, Rhode Island, helping President Francis Wayland of Brown University collect material for the biography of her deceased husband. An extended stay in Philadelphia in Nov. 1852 to June 1853 did nothing to slow her rapid decline.