Jessie was born in 1877, the third daughter of John and Martha Blair. John was the First Clerk of the Green Island Presbyterian Church Deacon's Court, Dunedin. She also had four brothers, including George, James and John.
In 1895 Jessie began to think about entering the "foreign mission field". She was an active member of the Christian Endeavour Society, a Sunday School teacher and later ran a bible class for "lads".
She trained for a short while under Mrs H. H Driver at the Missionary Training Institute. Classes were given on Bible study, Christian ethics, Evidences of Christianity, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, Physiology, Medicine, English and Music. Mrs Driver (b 1862) was herself previously a missionary in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) 1887-1889 but had to return home due to ill health. She settled in Dunedin in 1892 and with her husband set up the Missionary Training Institute. She also helped establish the Baptist Women's Missionary Union. She died in 1943. Her brother, a doctor, died in missionary service in Bangladesh of dysentery in 1905.
In 1896 the Plague (bubonic/pneumonic) epidemic started in Bombay (now Mumbai). In 1896 through to 1908 India also experienced a severe famine.
Up until 1897 Amy Parsons, an Australian, was the only female missionary at Poona Indian Village Mission.
On 12 August 1899 Jessie and the Lowe family - Mr John Lowe (a former Engineer in Chief at NZ Railways) and his wife Charlotte and daughter Amy (they had one daughter, six sons, including Frank and Manley who would travel to India with them) speak prior to their departure for India at a farewell at Victoria Hall, Dunedin. Money was raised for Jessie's passage.
Their aim was to establish a resort in the hills at Mahabeleshwar to which missionaries engaged in teaching could retire to recoup. Mrs Lowe was to be in charge of it while Mr Lowe helped out with local evangelism.
At this time there were 51 members of the Poona Indian Village Mission - 32 ladies and 22 gentlemen. (In 1895, Charles Reeve, an experienced evangelist from Tasmania, established the Poona and Indian Village Mission (PIVM) in Poona. He travelled regularly to England, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia to recruit missionaries and to raise funds. The mission was multidenominational).
On the 4 April 1900 Jessie wrote a letter home to the church in Dunedin. In summary:
* She had visited Paud, 20 miles from Poona and worked with 100 needy women
* Camp was pitched in a valley surrounded by hills
* They travelled overnight for 12 hours by mule and cart to Mahabeleshwar via Wathar and Panchgani
* She stayed at a "nice little bungalow" called Iona belonging to members of the mission. It was situated high in the jungle trees, a few minutes walk from the bungalow they could see Lake Venna
* She sat on the monument erected in memory of the late Governor of Poona
*"Many missionaries from all over India are here" - the Fountain Hotel was "occupied this summer entirely by missionaries". Mr Lowe conducts a bible reading there twice a week
* She visited Old Mahabeleshwar and saw two temples
* Wednesday mornings there was a prayer meeting at "Norheim" a neighbouring bungalow
* Saturday evenings there was a weekly prayer meeting at the American Mission Hall
* Open air meetings in the bazaar
* Famine was raging in India (due to failure of the monsoon). 60 children were being cared for in the orphanage.
* She was learning the language - Marathi - with her first exam due in September
* She requested prayers for safety from the "terrible plague"
On 22 October 1900 Jessie died of Typhoid (
Salmonella typhi). This is spread person to person via the faecal/oral route (usually by flies) or contaminated food or water. Fever develops up to 60 days after infection. Fever, rash, +/- diahorrea, abdo pain, delirium and dehydration are common. Typhoid has set stages that generally take four weeks to progress through to recovery (if one recovers). Innoculation for Typhoid in India was underway by by 1910.
Jessie's mother, Martha, got the news of her death while returning from Glasgow on the SS Perthshire on which her son, Jessie's brother John, was an engineer. The SS Perthshire frequently travelled London to NZ and return.
Also published in the Otago Daily times on this date is notice that the Lowe’s will be leaving India for England, which they actually did on September 15th 1900 (from Bombay to Trieste) having been ‘compelled’ to by their son Frank’s ill health. Earlier in the year their son Manley (aged 15) had died of a cholera-type illness in seven days. White Already to Harvest (WATH), the PIVM monthly newsletter for September 1900 describes Manley as having had a “buoyant disposition and gentle manners”. He had hoped to undertake medical training and become a missionary. He had been baptised on arrival at Poona in 1899. From March 1900 the Lowe’s had been at “Bonne Vue” (Mahabeleshwar) "for the rest of the season", and I suspect that this was soon after Manley's death.
In August of 1900 Amy Lowe had begun training at the Mission Hospital in Poona.
On 19 March 1901 at the monthly prayer meeting Jessie was remembered. Her aunt Mrs Kirkland spoke, and this was also published in
The Outlook.
