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Mary Gibbs treating a patient in her open-air operating-room.

From Life & Health, August 1916. Photo courtesy of Michael W. Campbell.

Denoyer, Mary (Gibbs) (1888–1984)

By Michael W. Campbell, and Heidi Olson Campbell

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Michael W. Campbell, Ph.D., is North American Division Archives, Statistics, and Research director. Previously, he was professor of church history and systematic theology at Southwestern Adventist University. An ordained minister, he pastored in Colorado and Kansas. He is assistant editor of The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia (Review and Herald, 2013) and currently is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism. He also taught at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies (2013-18) and recently wrote the Pocket Dictionary for Understanding Adventism (Pacific Press, 2020).

Heidi Olson Campbell, M.A. in English (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI) is currently a Ph.D. student at Baylor University where she focuses on the impact of climatic disruption on women and religion in early modern England. Campbell taught at the Adventist International Institution for Adventist Studies in the Philippines. She wrote a chapter on Adventist women for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism and contributed to the Ellen G. White Encyclopedia.

First Published: May 28, 2024

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Mary Gibbs was a pioneer missionary nurse to the Karen people in Burma (today Myanmar).1

Early Life

Mary Gibbs was born April 21, 1888, to John Milford (1860-1936) and Jennie Morrow (1861-1940) Gibbs who were elementary school teachers in Kansas.2 Mary served as a nurse at the Wichita Sanitarium in Wichita, Kansas, when the Foreign Mission Board voted for her to go as a missionary to India.3

Ministry

Gibbs left on August 24, 1910, with Elnora Reid from New York. They traveled with the J. L. Shaw family who were returning as missionaries to India. They were told that they would work at out-stations as needed.4 After arriving in India on November 14, 1910, Gibbs was sent to Burma.5 Once she arrived in Burma, she was tasked with studying the language of the Karen people. At the time, the Karens were an unreached people group. Gibbs became the first missionary to evangelize the Karen people. By early 1912 she passed her language exam and reported that two Karen men were keeping the Sabbath and one of them was baptized by Mr. Votaw.6 Learning the language enabled her to translate Bible studies into Karen. 7 But traveling to the villages in the hill country proved more difficult. In May 1912, she appealed for a missionary family to come and open a station so that she could follow up on these early leads.8

While she waited in Rangoon for additional help, Mary began to reach out to the Karen people. Soon after her arrival, she befriended three Karen young people whom she invited to attend the newly opened mission school at Meiktila. After they finished their training, they became teachers and invited her to travel back with them up the Salwin [Salween] River. Her nursing skills and community service “opened the hearts of this people.”9 Her early missionary work is mentioned as “Nurse Gibb” in J. O. Wilson’s missionary book, Advent Angels in Burma.10

When George Alexander (1882-1965) & Florence (1884-1938) Hamilton arrived in late 1912, she finally had her opportunity to establish a mission station where the Karen people lived.11 Funds from the 1913 Thirteenth Sabbath School “overflow offering” provided funding for the mission station on the Salwin [Salween] River, about a hundred miles above Moulmein. Over time this site became known as the Kamamaung Mission Station. She is credited with both co-founding this mission station, perhaps one of the best-known Adventist mission stations, and as the founder of the denomination’s work for the Karen people.12 Eric B. Hare (1894-1982) and his wife, Agnes (1893-1983), arrived on October 31, 1915, and joined the mission. Hare shared many stories about their work, which in no small part contributed to making this mission so famous.13 Gibbs both gave Bible studies and conducted a clinic there. Gibbs is referenced by Hare in his stories who credited her with founding the denomination’s work for the Karen people.14

In 1918 while on furlough in the United States, Gibbs married Andrew J. DeNoyer (1879-1968) on September 10, in Elk Falls, Kansas. Andrew had been a self-supporting colporteur in the United States until 1913, when he had been called to work as a missionary in the Shan States in northern Burma.15 In May 1919, they returned to Burma, where they established a girls’ school in Taikkyi. Andrew helped students raise funds by selling literature to support their way through school. The school expanded rapidly under Mary's superintendency.16 Both the DeNoyers took on numerous responsibilities. Mary served as a nurse, teacher, and Bible worker, and Andrew ran a farm as well as working at the school, supervising colporteurs, constructing buildings, and at one point serving as field mission secretary.17 The couple had two children, Margaret (1923-2006) and John (1926-2016).

The DeNoyers continued to serve until 1933 when poor health forced their permanent return. The girls’ school was merged with the Meiktila Training School at the time because of a lack of missionaries likely due to a lack of funding for foreign missions amid the Great Depression. On their way back to the United States, they accompanied two Burmese women, Grace David and Naw Phebe, on their way to attend the nursing program at Shanghai Sanitarium.18

When they first returned to the States, they moved to Texarkana, Texas, to run a poultry ranch. Always mission-minded, Gibbs rapidly pivoted to offering Bible training classes and eventually taught school albeit briefly.19 As of 1947, they lived in Collegedale, Tennessee, and were still rallying support for Adventist missions to the Karen people.20 In their retirement, they continued to give Bible studies.21

Final Years

Andrew was in a car accident in March 1957 that left him a permanent cripple. In 1959 he developed a heart condition that left him bedridden. Until his death on September 4, 1968, in Georgia, Mary used her nursing skills to take care of him.22 After his death she served as director of the Community Services for Sonoma, California, where she lived close to her daughter, Margaret.23 In her 80s, Mary returned to Burma to meet with former students and show her sister the country that she had loved so dearly.24 She died on December 15, 1984, in Sonoma, California.25

Legacy

Single women missionaries played a pivotal role in establishing the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Asia. Mary Gibbs DeNoyer’s experience demonstrates how important language learning was for reaching new people groups. As one contemporary observed,

Our workers are seeing more and more the advantage and the necessity of learning the language of the people . . . Mary Gibbs has a good knowledge of the Karen language, and in her work has won her way to the hearts of many.26

Her pioneer evangelistic efforts contributed to the vibrant community of Karen Adventists that still exists today in Southeast Asia. Mary was a versatile missionary filling whatever needs the church asked of her from learning Karen, translating religious tracts, providing medical care, establishing a new school, and teaching all while raising her own children as well. Even after her service in Burma was over, Mary Gibbs DeNoyer, like many missionaries, continued to serve her church in her home country.

Sources

Christian, J. L. “Burma Mission.” Eastern Tidings, June 15, 1933.

Gibbs, Mary. “Beginnings Among the Karens.” ARH, May 2, 1912.

Hare, Eric B. Jungle Stories. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1926.

Lowry, Helen. “Missionaries, Past and Present, Meet in Rangoon.” Southern Asia Tidings, February 1974.

Mookerjee, L. G. “A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Work.” Eastern Southern Asia Eastern Tidings, May 8, 1941.

Munson, Howard A. “Sonoma Dorcas Members Ready Shipment for Monument Valley.” Pacific Union Recorder, June 18, 1973.

Salisbury, H. R. “The Karens of Burma.” Australasian Record, November 29, 1915.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Takoma Park: Review and Herald, 1910 and 1940.

Shaw, J. L. “Biennial Meeting of the India Union Mission.” ARH, January 5, 1911.

Southern Asia Tidings Diamond Jubilee, June 1965.

Thara Chit Maung. “Messsage.” Missions Quarterly, Fourth Quarter, 1947.

Thurber, R. B. “Burma Notes.” The Eastern Tidings, March 1915.

Wellman, S. A. “A Visit to Taikgyi.” Eastern Tidings, April 15, 1922.

Whitlow, Paul. “New Notes from District No. 14.” Northern Union Outlook, March 4, 1947.

Wilson, James Orville. Advent Angels in Burma. N.P.: “Friends of Burma,” c. 1971.

Notes

  1. L. G. Mookerjee, “A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Work,” Eastern Southern Asia Eastern Tidings, May 8, 1941, 9, 10.↩

  2. For basic genealogical details, see: http://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tools/tree/186811360/invitees/accept?inviteId=fd9e0e04-9c81-43d6-8240-83b22fe84619. Accessed December 23, 2022.↩

  3. General Conference Committee Minutes, April 15, 1910, 213.↩

  4. See announcement, ARH, September 1, 1910, 24.↩

  5. J. L. Shaw, “Biennial Meeting of the India Union Mission,” ARH, January 5, 1911, 9; Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Takoma Park: Review and Herald, 1910), 137.↩

  6. Mary Gibbs, “Beginnings Among the Karens,” ARH, May 2, 1912, 12.↩

  7. See note in Australasian Record, August 5, 1912, 3.↩

  8. Mary Gibbs, “Beginnings Among the Karens,” ARH, May 2, 1912, 12.↩

  9. Southern Asia Tidings Diamond Jubilee, June 1965, 8.↩

  10. James Orville Wilson, Advent Angels in Burma (N.P.: “Friends of Burma,” ca. 1971).↩

  11. The minutes of the 1913 General Conference session record: “The call for opening up work among the Karens has been answered. Miss Mary Gibbs began the study of Karen two years ago, and Brother G. A. Hamilton and wife, lately of California, are now giving as much time as possible to the study of the language, with a view of opening up mission work among the Karen people.” General Conference Bulletin, May 28, 1913, 169.↩

  12. Thara Chit Maung, “Messsage,” Missions Quarterly, Fourth Quarter, 1947, 21; Arthur W. Spalding, Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1962), vol 4, 207.↩

  13. See note by R. B. Thurber, “Burma Notes,” Far Eastern Tidings, November 1, 1945, 5; R. C. and Mrs. Porter, “En Route from Calcutta to Burma,” Asiatic Division Mission News, April 1, 1917, 2-3; R. B. Thurber, “Burma Notes,” The Eastern Tidings, March 1915, 10; H. R. Salisbury, “The Karens of Burma,” Australasian Record, November 29, 1915, 3.↩

  14. E.g. Eric B. Hare, Jungle Stories (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1926), 31-32.↩

  15. Mrs. T. A. Graves, “Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,” Southern Union Worker, November 1, 1917, 3; see list of workers, Eastern Tidings, Special Edition December 1914, 2; R. B. Thurber, “Burma Notes,” Eastern Tidings, June 1915, 9; A. H. Williams, “A Visit to Burma,” Missionary Leader, March 1917, 13.↩

  16. J. Phillips, “The Superintendent’s Report,” Eastern Tidings, February 15, 1922, 2-3; S. A. Wellman, “A Visit to Taikgyi,” Eastern Tidings, April 15, 1922, 5-6.↩

  17. Eric B. Hare, “Medical Report for 1931,” Eastern Tidings, May 1, 1932, 5; R. A. B., “News Notes,” Eastern Tidings, May 1, 1932, 5-6; J. L. Christian, “Meiktila Training School,” Eastern Tidings, July 15, 1932, 11; “Summary of Colporteur Work,” Eastern Tidings, July 15, 1932, 10; J. Phillips, “The Burma Union Mission Report,” Eastern Tidings, December 17, 1930-January 3, 1931, 9; W. A. Spicer, “A Girl of the Karen Villages,” The Youth’s Instructor, June 19, 1923, 4; J. Phillips, “News Notes,” Eastern Tidings, November, 1, 1926, 4.↩

  18. J. L. Christian, “Burma Mission,” Eastern Tidings, June 15, 1933, 5-6; J. L. Christian, “Burma Mission,” Eastern Tidings, August 1, 1933, 6.↩

  19. A. F. Ruf, “Texarkana,” Southwestern Union Record, February 27, 1935, 3-4; W. E. Bement, “Texarkana Church Activities,” Southwestern Union Record, December 14, 1938, 2; Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Takoma Park: Review and Herald, 1940), 69.↩

  20. Paul Whitlow, “New Notes from District No. 14,” Northern Union Outlook, March 4, 1947, 6-7.↩

  21. R. M. Ruf, “Obit, Crisson, Hattie Jane McDonald,” Southern Tidings, February 13, 1957, 15.↩

  22. There is a discrepancy on his death date. His obit in Southern Tidings lists his death on September 5, but his headstone says September 4. Given that Southern Tidings also misspells his name, presumably his gravestone is the more accurate date. See “Obit. DeNeyer, Andrew,” Southern Tidings, December 1968, 31.↩

  23. Howard A. Munson, “Sonoma Dorcas Members Ready Shipment for Monument Valley,” Pacific Union Recorder, June 18, 1973, 5; Howard A. Munson, “Community Services Leader Visits Burma,” Pacific Union Recorder, January 7, 1974, 4.↩

  24. Helen Lowry, “Missionaries, Past and Present, Meet in Rangoon,” Southern Asia Tidings, February 1974, 6-7.↩

  25. “For the Record,” ARH, January 17, 1985, 23.↩

  26. N. Z. Town, “Field Notes,” ARH, May 24, 1917, 19.↩

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Campbell, Michael W., Heidi Olson Campbell. "Denoyer, Mary (Gibbs) (1888–1984)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. May 28, 2024. Accessed July 04, 2025. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=3JNX.

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Campbell, Michael W., Heidi Olson Campbell. "Denoyer, Mary (Gibbs) (1888–1984)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. May 28, 2024. Date of access July 04, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=3JNX.

Copy to clipboard Download Word File

Campbell, Michael W., Heidi Olson Campbell (2024, May 28). Denoyer, Mary (Gibbs) (1888–1984). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved July 04, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=3JNX.

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