During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Presbyterian missionaries devoted their lives to providing education, medical aid, and refuge to the people of Persia. Through epidemics, famine, the Persian Constitutional Revolution, and the Great War (WWI) missionaries often endangered their own lives while providing relief aid. They struggled with prejudice and obstruction by Muslim and Gregorian Christian clerics and by government authorities. After years of patient, self-sacrificing pursuit of missionary service, did they win the admiration and respect of the Persians?
Western Persia Mission: A Biography of Annie Rhea Wilson (1861-1952) by Kathryn McLane describes real events in the lives of Presbyterian missionaries in Persia from 1880s to 1940s. In 1886, Annie Rhea Wilson travels to Tabriz with her husband, Reverend Samuel Graham Wilson, where they spend thirty years of their lives as missionaries, educating young Persians at the mission Boys' School. Told through fictional dialogue, Annie and Sam initially struggle with Persian languages and customs, but soon, they emerge as leaders of the mission and build a new compound, including a church, missionary residences, a medical dispensary, and a school.
