Kugler, Dr. Anna S. 1856-1930.

Anna Sarah Kugler was born in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, on April 19, 1856, to Charles and Harriet Sheaff Kugler. She received her secondary education at Friends' Central High School and graduated from the Women's Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1879.

In 1882 Dr. Kugler applied to be sent as a missionary of the General Synod's Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society (WHFMS). The board instructed its secretary to convey to Dr. Kugler that it would be unable to appoint her as a medical missionary, but was willing to appoint her as a teacher.

She arrived in Guntur, India, Andrah Pradesh, on November 29, 1883. Her medical work continued only as a secondary pursuit for her first year in India. Her primary responsibility was to the tasks to which she had been called, that of teaching and zenana work among the Muslim women in harems.

In December 1885 Dr. Kugler was officially appointed a medical missionary. She began planning for a hospital and reported by February 1892 that plans and cost estimates for a hospital as well as a dispensary had been prepared and that hospital funds would be sent from America.

Her dream of a hospital for women was realized when American Evangelical Lutheran Mission Hospital, Guntur, India, opened on June 22, 1897. Dr. Kugler died in Guntur on July 26, 1930, at the age of 74. Shortly after her death the hospital she envisioned and had helped make a reality was renamed Kugler Hospital.

From the description of Dr. Anna S. Kugler Papers 1868-1983 1883-1930. (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Library). WorldCat record id: 49883350