As a young girl in Germany, Martha would gather neighborhood children together for Sunday School. That was the beginning of her lifetime career of caring for and loving people, especially those
that were often forgotten by others.
Shortly after her graduation from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, Martha’s pastor directed her attention to the deaconess program. She entered training and was consecrated in 1938 as a deaconess nurse. After graduation, Martha worked at the Lutheran Home in Addison, IL, helping children from broken homes. She planned to become a missionary nurse in China but had to postpone her plans due to World War II. While waiting for clearance to travel, Martha served at the Cleveland Gospel Center as a parish deaconess, working with the poor in the inner-city.
When the war ended, she was commissioned as a “deaconess-missionary-nurse” and in 1946, was sent to Enshih, China as director of the mission hospital and nurses training program. During the Communist takeover of China in 1949, Martha was able to secure a spot on one of the last planes to leave for Hong Kong and settled there to begin a Lutheran mission. She served in various ways – deaconess-nurse, English teacher, Sunday School teacher, youth worker, and helper to the blind, deaf, and poor.
According to missionary Dr. Elmer Thode, “No one in our circle has done as much as Martha in providing assistance for the poor and sick, needy students, the aged, and others” The Lutheran Church-Hong Kong named their community center the “Martha Boss Lutheran Community Center” in remembrance of her “untiring service to her Lord among the Chinese people”.
In 1964, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis presented the Christus Vivit (Christ lives in me) medal to Martha. The citation read, “Concordia Seminary expresses the gratitude of its entire church in awarding this distinction to a self-sacrificing and intrepid missionary worker, a deaconess who honors her profession, a Christian who shines forth the light of love with which she has been loved.”
While home on furlough in 1973, Martha was tragically killed in an auto accident, along with two other Hong Kong missionaries. She was en route to Valparaiso to attend the LDC Annual Meeting, where she would have celebrated her 35th consecration anniversary. Upon hearing of her death, Dr. William H. Kohn, Executive Secretary of the LCMS Board for Mission said, “It is difficult to fully comprehend all that this means in terms of the work of the church in Hong Kong. We know that the loss is perhaps immeasurable.”
The Hong Kong Lutheran Social Services published a commemorative book in her honor, “Serving the Lord with Joy: A Pioneer of the Lutheran Church-Hong Kong Synod”, and the Diakonia en Christo award, presented by the LDA, is given in her honor. Martha Boss represents to many Chinese Christians a faithful messenger and example of the love of Jesus.
