Eliza: My Ancestor!

Upon Baptism, the Uduvil girls took up a Christian name and often their sponsor's name. Eliza, as the principal of the school was probably a favourite! My great grandmother Ponnamma married to Dr. Robert Breckenridge, was the first female in our family to convert and it's no wonder she took up the name Eliza. Older daughter of respected upper-class (so called Vellala, Chola descent) Saivaite landowner/philanthropist, she and her sister became Christians, while their brothers, Chelliah (oldest) and Thambiah (youngest) remained Saivaites. Chelliah/Chellachi couple and descendants were very fair skinned vegetarian Hindus and lived along the lane right across from Uduvil Girls school.

Upper class women were educated to marry upper class educated Christian gentlemen and raise a Christian elite family. Marriages were and are always fixed within the same caste/class---as a way of maintaining the gene pool, I was told. Even within a village the life styles and mannerism were so vastly different between the different castes, those days, it would have been naturally impossible to cross the line. Apparently, the Uduvil school and the American missionaries were sensitive to the local customs and did follow the caste rule in proposing marriages whenever they were involved. I will write in another post about mummy's thoughts on caste system: She's so ahead of her times and of course a great teacher. She always made us stop and think! *Most of these facts were directly passed on from my grandmother Lily Arulamma, her cousins Samuel Abraham and Thangamma, and my mother to me.Copyright©2011 VeerajaR

Reference: The white woman’s other burden: Western women and south Asia. Kumari Jayawardena 1995 – Biography & Autography (310 pgs)

Eliza Agnew From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Eliza Agnew (February 2, 1807 – June 14, 1883) was an American Presbyterian missionary. She was born in New York City to James and Jane Agnew. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Agnew

On December 28, 1823, at a revival meeting at the Orange Street Presbyterian Church,

she converted to Christianity. She was educated in and lived in New York City

for nearly 32 years, devoting her service to the home, to the "Sabbath-school", and

in the distribution of Scripture and tracts. After her parents died, she secured appointment

to the Ceylon Mission of the American Board of Boston in 1839. She sailed from

Boston, Massachusetts to Jaffna,Ceylon (Sri Lanka as of 1972), aboard the Black Warrior.

She served as teacher for 42 years without furlough in the Female Boarding School

in Uduvil, just north of Jaffna, Ceylon. The Missionary Herald (September, 1863)

rewarded her pioneering efforts in Ceylon towards helping girls and women with the

following quote: "It is largely owing to the work she was permitted to do

that female education is more advanced here (Ceylon) than in

almost any other heathen land."

She was a woman of prayer, concerned with the spiritual welfare

of her students. Of one thousand people of three generations

under her influence, six hundred adopted to Christianity. She

visited and assisted graduates and ex-pupils with home

economics and spiritual affairs. Then she resigned as principle

of the school in 1879 and moved to Manepay, just west

of the school. She resided in the home of Misses

M. and M.W. Leitch, American Board missionaries in Manipai.

She died from a paralytic stroke in June 1883 and

was buried in Oodooville near the school over which she presided.

• Johnson, Allen, ed. Dictionary of American Biography. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.
• Who Was Who in American Biography: Historical Volume, 1607–1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1963.

Categories: 1807 births | American Christian missionaries | Christian missionaries in Sri Lanka | American Presbyterians | 1883 deaths | People from New York City | Missionary educators | American Ceylon Mission | Female Christian missionaries