Minnie Vautrin
missionary in China
Wilhelmina "Minnie" Vautrin (September 27, 1886 – May 14, 1941) was an American missionary, diarist, educator and president of Ginling College. A Christian missionary in China for 28 years, she became known for caring for and protecting at least 10,000 Chinese refugees during the Nanjing Massacre in China, during which she kept a now-published diary, at times even challenging the Japanese authorities for documents in an attempt to protect the civilians staying at her college.
After surviving in the Nanking Safety Zone from 1937, she returned to the United States in May 1940. One year later, she committed suicide in America due to extreme stress and trauma from the Nanjing Massacre. Vautrin was awarded the Order of the Blue Jade by the Chinese government for her humanitarian work during the Nanjing Massacre.
Early life and education
Wilhelmina Vautrin was born in Secor, Clayton Township, Illinois, on September 27, 1886, to Pauline (née Lohr) and Edmond Louis Vautrin. Her father Edmond, who considered himself French, immigrated from the often-contested Lorraine region to the United States. He arrived in Clayton County, Illinois, in 1883 to undergo a blacksmithing apprenticeship with his uncle in Peoria, and later moved to nearby Secor, where he married Pauline. Minnie was the second of the couple's three children; her elder brother died as an infant.
When Minnie was six years old, her mother died of unrecorded causes.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q714359. VIAF identifies the subject as 77533273. The Library of Congress control number is no97064302. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1886, 1941, 1937 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Minnie Vautrin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.