Laura Wilson McKean

By: Margaretta Wells

Laura Wilson McKean was small, slight and artistic. She was the second wife of James W. McKean M.D. a young widower with a small daughter when she married him. She was just out of college.

The McKeans, with little Ethel, traveled out to Siam with Cornelia McGilvary a very fortuitous circumstance, and she answered their questions as best she could. They arrived in 1889. Mrs. McGilvary met the party in Bangkok, and traveled with them in the high tailed boats, in itself an exercise in patience.

Both the McKeans were great students of language and could read and write Thai, Lao and Cambodian.

Laura McKean struggled with language and housekeeping at the same time. She told us that on one occasion coming into the kitchen she was confronted with her first Asiatic cockroach. Pointing at the offending insect she exclaimed ‘Brahan chewit’. And the servants burst into laughter even as they dispatched the animal. “What I should have said” explained Mrs. McKean. “was simply ‘Ka.’ Brahan Chewit is the high word for ‘kill’ and used when referring to the elimination of unpleasant princes, potentates and despots of high rank.”

When their children, Katherine (Kate) and Hugh were little, Mrs. McKean was at home much of the time, instead of working in a school or the hospital. She had great aptitude for writing and did her husband’s reports and the annual report for the Chiang Mai work. She was editor and chief writer of the Lao News for many years. It was the first newspaper that developed into a magazine. She also translated the Gospel of Mark into Cambodian.

Laura McKean was never very well in Siam and was continually fighting respiratory troubles. She spent much time on the mountain (Doi Suthep) and was a collector and student of butterflies and moths. She collected for the British Museum in London.

One night in April 1929 we were awakened by a great fluttering and bumping in the room. On investigation with the flashlight we saw a beautiful large moth. Thinking of Mrs. McKean, two cottages up the trail, we clapped a fruit jar over the oth. The next morning we took the fragile moth, all rose colored and pale green, up to her. She was delighted with its size and perfection, no nicked wings or bent antennae. It went off to London in the next shipment.

Three months later when Mrs. McKean heard from the curators, she learned that the rose-colored moth was a new discovery, and so had been named ‘Laura McKeanae…plus the name of the species [Npte: McKeanae Cockerell Daseochaeta]. Mrs. McKean has had three moths or butterflies named for her.

Mrs. McKean was an artist of some talent. She liked to paint the mountain. As I was looking at three different paintings of Doi Suthep she said. “They are all different because the mountain is always changing. It is never the same. It fascinates me. I wish I could catch it better.”

Laura McKean was a great player of games, too. The night before she left Chiang Mai never to return (1930) we had a big ‘games’ party. Since Dr. McKean was staying on another year the house was not dismantled and it seemed as if our visits would go on forever.

The express train left at 8 a.m. so the party broke up early and we all went to the station to wave her off the next morning. “I try to think I’ll be coming back; she said with a teary smile which I did not understand until later.

 

Sources:

Presbyterian Historical Society, Kenneth and Margaretta Wells Collection, “Complete 1950, 1969, 1980s-1995 and Undated ‘Wives of the Six Musketeers of the North and Women of Faith material.’” (Box 7, Folder 13)

 

Notes:

Moth/Butterfly named after Laura McKean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daseochaeta