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LOUISVILLE – A prominent missionary-surgeon has died in North Carolina, surrounded by the missionary community
Paul Shields Crane, 86, died at his home of congestive heart failure on June 12. He was also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
A renaissance man, Crane was a respected linguist who translated for U.S. presidents on three occasions, helped develop a medical treatment for a debilitating parasite, assisted in establishing universities in Korea and served as both a teacher and a surgeon in Korea for more than 20 years.
He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Sophie Crane of Black Mountain, N.C.; five children, Virginia and husband, Robert Gleser, of Modesto, CA; John and wife, Amy, of Prairieville, LA; Tish and husband, the Rev. David Rainey of Nashville, TN; Janet and husband, Dr. Randy Adams of Heng Chun, Taiwan; and Dr. James Crane and wife, Brenda of Rome, GA.
There are 16 grandchildren.
“He brought help to so many,” said the Rev. Insik Kim, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s liaison to Korea, describing Crane as one of the “early pioneer missionaries.” “When I arrived at the memorial service, Sophie said to me, ‘Insik, I am glad you are here. We are here today to celebrate joyfully.’
“And it was a celebration, indeed. It was thanksgiving for the life and ministry of Paul Crane … He wasn’t a preacher, like his father. He preached, instead, with his hands. He was one of the best surgeons.”
The service was held June 22 at the Black Mountain Presbyterian Church, just outside the Montreat Conference Center, where many retired Presbyterian missionaries live. More than 50 people with ties to Korean missionary work were among those at the service.
Crane was born on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS, on May 2, 1919. He grew up in Japanese-occupied Korea, the son of southern Presbyterian missionaries, the Rev. John C. Crane and Florence H. Crane. He attended Pyongyang Foreign School, graduated from Davidson College in 1941 and received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University Medical School in 1944.
Crane and his wife began working as medical missionaries in Korea in 1947.
Crane established a teaching hospital for the training of nurses, surgical and medical personnel. Starting before the Korean War, he oversaw the construction of the Presbyterian Medical Center in Chonju, South Korea, and served as director until 1969.
He worked with churchwomen in the United States and Germany to raise money for the construction of the Jesus Hospital in Chonju, and participated in the groundbreaking in 1971. Crane also coordinated the medical services of the Wilson Leprosarium near Yosu, Korea, until 1959.
Crane was evacuated to Osaka, Japan, when Chonju was occupied during the Korean War, and treated some of the first U.S. casualties. He also was part of a team that developed a medical treatment for the liver fluke, a debilitating parasite. He also helped develop public health programs to control intestinal parasites.
Virginia Somerville, a retired missionary-nurse in Korea, said she remembers walking the wards with Crane as he was learning how parasites were sapping the health of Koreans.
“He’d say, ‘That man has three parasites — that one, four. This one has five.’ And he went to great lengths to solve the problem in Korea,” she said, adding that introducing compost to farmers was one part of the answer, because it minimized contact with solid waste.
“He was an excellent surgeon," Somerville said. "As a missionary-doctor, you’re usually called upon to do all kinds of things that aren’t in the surgical field: He delivered one or two of my children.”
Crane’s interests were not only medical.
He was a founding board member of Han Nam University in Teajon, Korea, and a board member at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. He also served on the board of the Medical Benevolence Foundation, which he helped found.
Crane wrote Korean Patterns, a book intended to help foreigners appreciate traditional Korean culture. During his years in Korea, he was a regular contributor to the “Thoughts of the Times” column in the Korea Times newspaper.
With his wife, Crane also wrote books about Tennessee culture.
A World War II veteran, Crane was recalled to military service and served in Korea as the chief of surgery at the 121st Evacuation Hospital and later as the commanding officer of the M.A.S.H. unit immortalized in the hit television series, M*A*S*H.
He later wryly told Marj Carpenter, a longtime church journalist and a former PC (USA) moderator, that he wished he’d written the series himself.
“He was a dear man,” Carpenter said. “In one hospital that I visited (with Crane) in South Korea, there was a long line of pictures of Korean doctors in the hall — over 120. He trained every one of them.”
Crane translated for President John Kennedy during one official visit and twice for President Lyndon Johnson in meetings with the president of the Republic of Korea.
After returning from Korea in 1969, Crane had a private surgical practice in Nashville, TN, retiring in 1984. He then served as the assistant to the director of International Missions for Health Affairs of the PC (USA) from 1984 to 1987, visiting mission facilities worldwide.
He was an ordained elder, active in the Black Mountain Church.
He also was a Rotarian.
One son, William Lancaster Crane, preceded him in death.
In lieu of flowers, the family requested that donations be made to the Medical Benevolence Foundation, 3100 S. Gressner, Suite 210, Houston, TX 77063 (www.MBFoundation.org).
Much of this obituary is reprinted from the June 20 issue of the Ashville Citizen-Times.
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