Jawaharlal Nehru looked into Ida’s eyes and said, “I am honored, Doctor.”
Two years later, in 1957, the National Broadcasting Company in New York brought a seven-man team to Vellore. The team was filming a show called the “March of Medicine,” featuring medical stories from around the world. Vellore was its only stop in India. The men found so many things to report on that they stayed for seventeen days. They filmed the leprosy rehabilitation program, the eye clinics, which by now had given ten thousand people their sight back, and the many Roadsides that still radiated out from the hospital. They finished their visit by interviewing Ida in her Hill Top garden.
By now Ida was eighty-six years old. Her shoulders were beginning to stoop, and her walk had slowed a little, but her mind was as sharp as ever. During the interview she meticulously quoted statistics on the growth of medical science in India during the fifty-seven years she had been there. Back in the United States, twenty million people watched the broadcast of the interview, many of the older ones no doubt recalling Ida’s famous fundraising techniques of years gone by.
The following year Ida broke her hip, but her determination won through. Unwilling to spend the rest of her life in bed, she exercised every day and was soon up and about her beautiful garden again.
Early in 1959, sixty years after she graduated from Cornell University, Ida received an honor she was particularly proud of. The Cornell Alumni Association awarded Ida a medal of distinction. Ida’s eyes misted over as she read the inscription that accompanied the medal. “In recognition of her notable contribution to medical education, public health, and international understanding. Her life of devoted service to mankind is an inspiration to all and has brought honor and acclaim to the [Cornell] medical college.”
It was as if the celebrations of her life and work never ended! Following the awarding of the medal of distinction, Ida marked sixty years of service in India in January 1960. And in December that same year she would celebrate her ninetieth birthday. To mark both of these events, a large combined celebration was planned for August, after the student vacations were over.
Ida heard snippets of the events planned for the occasion. The president of India and the governor of Madras, along with the American ambassador to India, had already accepted invitations to attend. And Ida Belle was coming back early from furlough to preside over the event.
One day, three months before the celebration was due to take place, Ida went about her usual routine. She gardened in the morning, had guests for lunch, and accompanied them on a ten-mile car ride through the hills. Then after dinner she joined in a group sing-along that included her favorite hymns.
The following morning Ida awoke early feeling dizzy. It wasn’t the first time she had experienced such spells, but something about this one was different.
A nurse who was staying with Ida offered to make her a cup of coffee. “It will help clear your head,” she said.
“Not this time,” Ida replied emphatically.
Five minutes later Ida Sophia Scudder was dead.
Later that same day, May 24, 1960, a funeral service was held in Kodaikanal, and then Ida’s body was transported overnight to Vellore. The cavalcade arrived in Vellore at 7:00 A.M. to find the normally bustling town silent. No children ran to school, the market was empty, the blinds in houses were pulled down, and thousands of people lined the route, their heads bowed and their minds filled with personal memories of their Dr. Ida.
Ida’s official funeral was held at 7:45 in front of the administration block, as there was no building large enough to contain the crowd. While she had died three months before the celebration of her life in India, her life was well celebrated at the funeral. An Indian man, the general superintendent of the hospital, gave the eulogy.
“Only those who can see the invisible can achieve the impossible,” he said, with tears streaming down his face. “Dr. Ida Scudder has achieved the impossible through her close touch with the invisible God through her faith.”
When he was finished, Dr. Carol Jameson, whom Ida had recruited to work in Vellore thirty-seven years before, read the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, the same chapter Ida had read aloud many times to her students over the years.
As Ida Scudder’s coffin was placed in the hearse, the gathered crowd sang “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” It was Ida’s favorite hymn.
The hearse pulled slowly away from the hospital, headed for the Tamil Church, where Ida was to be buried. Doctors, students, cooks, lepers, orphans, and town dignitaries fell silently in line behind it, forming a mile-long procession.
Ida’s body was buried beside her mother’s grave, yet her legacy remained alive. It was reflected in the hearts of the hundreds of people who stood respectfully watching her coffin being lowered into the Indian soil, and in the thousands of people across India and around the world who had been healed and inspired by the touch of this amazing doctor.
Postscript
It has been over one hundred years since Ida Scudder returned to Vellore to set up a medical clinic for women. Today the Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital operates much like a small town. It has a staff of over 5,000 people, including 596 doctors, 1,545 nurses, and 183 teaching staff. The medical college, which Ida fought so hard to preserve, takes in sixty students a year, with a minimum of twenty-five of those being women. Fifteen places are set aside for low-income students, and many Christian churches in India supply scholarships to these promising students.
The various hospitals and clinics serve over eighty thousand inpatients a year and over 1.2 million outpatients. Each day ten Bible classes are held in nine languages and broadcast throughout the complex so that any patient can tune in and listen. Hospital chaplains visit and pray with 380 patients a day.
Both the hospital and the college continue the standard of excellence that their founder set. In 2002 India Today magazine ranked the Vellore medical college the top college in India. The hospital is known around the world for its thorough research in the area of tropical disease and its innovations in rural health care, disease prevention, and community empowerment.
Friends of Vellore still meet around the world, raising money, recruiting staff, and praying for the continuing work.
In 1900 Dr. Ida Scudder came to India with the modest goal of helping the women of Vellore. Through her dedication and faith, she has left a legacy, the impact of which is still felt every year by millions of people whose bodies are healed and hearts are touched through the ministry of the hospital and medical school at Vellore.
