McFarland, Bertha Blount

Biographical Information

George Bradley McFarland was born in 1866 to Rev. Samuel Gamble McFarland and Jane Hays McFarland while they were serving as missionaries in Siam (now Thailand). Except for a few years spent in the United States to obtain medical and dental degrees, George McFarland lived most of his life in Siam. After his first wife Mary Root McFarland died in 1923, he married missionary Bertha Blount in 1925.

The McFarland family contributed many things to their adopted land of Siam. Samuel Gamble McFarland not only worked as a missionary but also published one of the first Siamese-English dictionaries, which his son George revised after his father's death. Jane Hays McFarland ran one of the first schools for girls in Thailand and later had a school named in her honor. William Hays McFarland, George's brother, served as Siam's Ministry of War and introduced Western military methods to Siam. Edwin McFarland, another brother, also served in the Siamese government and developed the first Siamese typewriter. George McFarland not only expanded on the work of his parents and siblings after their deaths, but also taught at the Royal Medical College and translated many medical texts into Siamese.

George McFarland died in 1942. At some point his wife Bertha returned to the United States, where she continued contact with the Missions in Thailand.

-McFarland, George B. Reminiscences of Twelve Decades of Service to Siam 1860-1936 . [Bangkok]: Bangkok Times Press, 1936.

From the guide to the George Bradley McFarland family papers, circa 1862-1964, bulk 1880-1951, (The Bancroft Library)