Walter Charles Purviance

The son of Nathan Maxson Purviance and Emma Belle McPherson. He married July 3, 1907 Lula Alma Byram and had four children. Emma Belle Purviance born 1910 Korea, Winifred Margarette Purviance born 1912 Korea, Walter Byram Purviance born 1914 Nebraska, & Charles Millard Purviance born 1922, Nebraska. Walter began medical practice in 1905. He was living in Leavenworth, Kansas for a while before he and his wife traveled to Syen Chyun, Korea in 1908 as Medical Missionaries. He founded the Duncan Memorial Hospital at Chung Ju, Korea in 1911. Named after a benefactor, Mrs. Duncan from New York. On July 2, 1911 he writes, "I expect to get the hospital finished this month. How glad I will be. For three years I have thought and planned and drawn plans and made out specifications and orders for material, and paid workmen and kept accounts, and supervised the work under way. I have had to watch every stone and brick that has gone into the building. I have had to direct the carpenter work, the stonework, the painting, the plastering, the plumbing, drawing pictures of all I could not explain. I am proud of the job." The total cost he writes was around $10,000.