Mabel West in the Robe of Achievement

Miss Mabel West was a devoted missionary.  She taught at a school for girls in Shanghai, China. She was an active part of the Seventh Day Baptist Grace School. She was a devoted teacher who cared a great deal for her students and followed their lives beyond the classroom.

She was an accomplished seamstress and made many a layette for the children of her students. She also put these skills to use in wartime making articles of clothing and comfort for refugees.

Miss West, despite the unrest of WWII, chose to stay in China when given the chance to repatriate, because she felt they could be of help to the Mission and their Chinese friends. She was interred at a concentration camp by the Japanese shortly thereafter and even through the hardship maintained her unselfish and friendly attitude. With the cessations of hostilities Miss West was once again excited to get to work as a missionary.

Mable only came back to the States after falling and sustaining a serious fracture to her hip, which was not able to be fully repaired. Communist tension was on the rise and so Miss West returned home to Milton, WI and was the caretaker, though handicapped, for her mother and aunt until their deaths.

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