Nannie B. Gaines (April 23, 1860 – February 26, 1932) was an American missionary teacher in Japan. She was head of Hiroshima Jogakuin, a Methodist girls' school in Hiroshima, for 45 years, beginning in 1887.
Early life and education
Ann Elizabeth Gaines[1] was born on a farm in Union County, Kentucky,[2] the daughter of August (or Gustavus) Cooke Gaines and Catherine Mary Cromwell Gaines.[3] Her father, a lawyer, died when she was a little girl,[4] and her mother died in 1881. Her brother J. B. Gaines was a judge in Florida.[3] She graduated from Franklin Female College in 1878.[5]
Career
Gaines taught at schools in Kentucky and Florida as a young woman.[4] She moved to Hiroshima in 1887, as a missionary teacher under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). She began teaching at a girls' school organized by a Japanese Christian minister, Teikichi Sunamoto,[6] and was the school's principal or principal emeritus for the rest of her life.[7] She rebuilt the program after a typhoon and fire destroyed its buildings in 1891, and added a kindergarten program.[8] In 1906, the school expanded and became an official girls' high school; it was described as "the largest mission school for girls" in Japan.[9][10] In 1919, Gaines added a teacher training program, elevating the school to a college-level institution.[7]
After she retired as principal emeritus, she left daily school work for missionary travels around Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. During a 1914 furlough in the United States,[11] she persuaded her mission board in Nashville to fund an automobile for her work.[12] In 1916 she was decorated by the Japanese government for her work.[13] She supported the work of Michi Kawai and Umeko Tsuda with the YWCA in Japan. She had an audience with the Crown Prince in 1926, to discuss women's education.[4]
Gaines' sister Rachel Cromwell Gaines joined her in Hiroshima in 1916, and the sisters taught and lived together on the school's campus.[7][15] Gaines died in 1932, at the age of 71, in Hiroshima.[3] Although her ashes were interred in Hiroshima, a memorial marker was also placed at the courthouse in Dixon, Kentucky.[16]
A statue of Gaines was erected on the campus of her school, but it was removed and recycled as scrap metal during wartime.[17] The school's buildings were destroyed and more than three hundred teachers and students were killed by the atomic bomb in 1945.[18] Hiroshima Jogakuin University (HJU) reopened at a new location away from the city's center; it is still an educational institution for women as of 2024.[19] Gaines Chapel, on the campus of HJU, is named in memory of Nannie B. Gaines.[20]
