John Gillespie Magee (1884 - 1953)

Ancestors

Husband of Faith Emmeline (Backhouse) Magee — married 19 Jul 1921 in Kuling, China

Died 9 Sep 1953 at about age 69 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Sarah Dunn [send private message]

Biography

1911: graduated from the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and ordained the same year at Calvary Church, Pittsburgh. 1912: China, as a missionary of the American Episcopal Church in Nanjing (then Nanking). 1915: established a new mission in Xiaguan (then Hsiakwan). 1940: left China, after saving thousands of Chinese lives during the Nanking Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War; became an Assistant Minister at St. John’s, Washington, under Rector The Reverend C. Leslie Glenn. 1941: became Acting Rector for duration of the war when Dr. Glenn was called up. While there, he was one of the Episcopal priests who officiated at the funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Magee also served as chaplain to President Harry S. Truman. 1946: Episcopal Chaplain at Yale. 1953: Associate Rector at Calvary Church, Pittsburgh until his death.

“Instinctively patient, courteous, humble, good humoured, and absolutely selfless, he was one foreigner whom few Chinese could not respect and whom many were to grow to love. He also did his best to disguise his affluent origins. For some years in China he was to pay his own salary. However, so that his financial situation would not be known to his fellow missionaries and Chinese co-workers, this stipend was paid through his Pittsburgh bank as a monthly donation to the American Board of Foreign Missions in New York.” [this description of John Magee was by his son Christopher, as quoted in F. Hugh Magee’s 2019 book, Required to Love: A Memoir ISBN-13: 978-1546779414]

Sources

• http://www.thepeerage.com/p54103.htm#i541029

• ““DESCENDANTS of THOMAS BACKHOUSE, Yeoman, of Kirkland, CALDBECK, Cumberland Died 1743” Compiled by Brigadier E. H. W. BACKHOUSE, D.L. Late the Suffolk Regiment Reproduced for private circulation. June, 1959

in possession of Sarah Dunn”

• Required to Love: A Memoir by F. Hugh Magee