ABSTRACT
The voyage from Hong Kong to Bangkok, Siam, her final destination, lasted for thirty-four days, and though tranquil it was not without its moments of high adventure – a threatened attack by pirates was averted by outspeeding them. After being tossed on churning seas she was cast upon Asian shores, bereft of husband, children, and home. Her careful plans were in tatters for she had wanted to become a wife and mother, and as her friend wrote: “She was disappointed beyond measure. She was naturally domestic, and it was simply out of the question for her to conceive of a successful life for herself that was not based upon conjugal love, the care of a home and the rearing of children.”2 Fielde was described by William Dean, Head of the Bangkok Baptist mission,3 as
wonderfully sustained under her overwhelming bereavement and [she] affords by her personal cheerfulness, in this hour of dire calamity, another proof of the divinity of the religion she has come to teach. . . . She takes the house fitted up for her reception by Mr. Chilcott, her husband during the last weeks of his glowing life. Her first introduction into the room where he died, and to the house as it was in his health, seemed too much for her to endure and live; but after a few hours, the objects most familiar to him in health, and the room that witnessed his dying struggle, seemed to speak to her. . . . She finds a warm companionship in my family. . . . We went with her yesterday to Mr. Chilcott’s grave. At first sight she fainted but soon recovered, and after spending a little time at the sacred resting place of her chosen husband, she came away with great calmness and gave directions for a monument to be erected over his grave.
