THE LOVE AND LIFE OF A MISSIONARY

Miss Gazelle (Hattie Louise) Traeger was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 27, 1890 to Rev, and Mrs. J.A. Traeger. She became acquainted with Jesus early in life. In her own words "As a child I became deeply interested in Foreign Missionary Service and the conviction that I must enter the work came in my fourteenth year."

Beside her love for God and people, according to a talk she made upon her return from a foreign field, the encouragement she received from the Monthalia Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society figured in much of her final decision.

She received a B.A. degree from the University of Texas, also studying at Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and the Universities of New Mexico and Colorado. She also attended a national training school in religious education at Kansas City, where she was superintendent of a Mexican Mission.

Prior to her missionary service she taught school for six years in Texas, worked in a Y.W.C.A., taught Sunday School, served in the Epworth League and various other roles of the church.

Miss Gazelle left for Malaysia as an educational missionary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in 1921. Except for regular furlough periods, she remained in the foreign field until 1941. While there, she taught in the Anglo-Chinese Girls School, Ipoh, and the Methodist Girls School in Kuala Lum Pur, also serving as supervisor of the primary department. She was also principal in the Fair Field Girls School in Singapore and the Suydam Girls School in Malacca.

Following her return to the States she was principal and teacher at the Harwood Girls School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, also teaching at Carr Junior High School in Orange, Texas.

At the close of World War II, realizing the dangers that could await her but having a deep desire to win souls for Christ, she requested to be reinstated as a missionary to a foreign country. This time in September, 1945, she was sent to teach at Bennett College in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,remaining in this position until December, 1948. She returned home to retire on April 1, 1949.

Throughout her remaining years, she was active in the Methodist Church, the community in which she lived, and the Women's Society of Christian Service, even in her last years to some extent when ill health plagued her.

God called her Home on February 12, 1974. She was laid to rest near her father and mother in the family cemetery in Seguin, Texas.

NOTE:

Gazelle Traeger's biography will appear in Hundred Women in Mission, a publication of the Southwest Texas Conference, a part of the centennial celebration of the United Methodist Women and its predecessor organizations.