Doctor Elmer Coulston was a model of heroic service to the mission field.
The China Division was created on January 1, 1931, with Dr. H. W. Miller as president. He and the China Division Executive Committee wanted to push mission work to the north. This move was accelerated with the arrival of Otto and Dorothy Christensen who were sent to Kalgan, approximately 125 miles northwest of Peking. They came to open the work among the Mongols. Otto Christensen hastened to study the Mongolian language, and he soon set up presses which he operated in producing Christian literature.
The Otto Christensens were joined soon by Dr. Elmer F. Coulston and family. With cultivated sensibilities, he was a remarkable physician.
Conservatory-trained, he played the piano and organ with competence and authority. He was a fine mixture of a frontier spirit and an unconquerable soul.
On the day of his arrival Doctor Coulston threw himself into acquiring the language for his medical missionary endeavor. Patients were treated almost immediately. If successful, mission doctors were “jack-of-all-trades” and master of many. Such was this man. Soon the hospital opened in November, 1931. Beggars, lamas, village people, and others descended upon the institution, which enjoyed a steadily increasing patronage. A small clinic was started in the city, thus providing opportunity for further evangelistic work. A total of 12,014 patients came during the first year. In the fall of 1932 a training school for nurses was opened, and in spite of many burdens, the hospital performed magnificently.
Through the hands and mind of Doctor Coulston and his helpers, the Lord performed many miracles. Some patients who had been expected to die, recovered, rejoicing. On every occasion, Doctor Coulston prayed with his patients. On every hand there was evidence of divine blessing. The clinic soon was treating 50 people a day, and the hospital was more than full. Built to accommodate some 20 persons, in August, 1935, there were 52 patients in the hospital.
All of this was accomplished in the midst of civil war with government troops, warlord soldiers, and just plain bandits, everywhere. Merely to survive would have been an achievement, but to continue trying to provide medical treatment under those conditions is beyond anyone's imagination.
Disease seemed everywhere in China and anyone could contract almost any serious illness at any time. After only two and one-half years in China, the Coulstons lost their only child, Chris, and with aching hearts the parents buried him in a little foreign cemetery, not realizing that his father in the very near future would be laid to rest beside him.
On one of his calls, Doctor Coulston ministered to a child who was deathly ill of diphtheria. In the course of his treatment, the little patient coughed in the doctor's face. Upon returning home, the doctor took the usual precautions. However, the child was suffering from a particularly virulent type of the disease, and Doctor Coulston suddenly developed a fever and other symptoms.
Even in his weakened condition, he continued to work. He was called out on an emergency to revive a woman who had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of opium. He gave her artificial respiration and worked on her until he was exhausted. That night there was a special prayer beside his bed, but there was no anti-toxin in the hospital. While some was ultimately secured from Peking, it was too late to be effective. As Doctor Coulston realize his life neared its end, and not being able to speak, he signaled for a piece of paper, and wrote: “Tell my father I died happy in service.”
He was laid to rest beside his son. The government and city honored him at a funeral home, sending silk banners with beautifully embroidered characters that read, “He died for the Chinese” and “All the Chinese mourn his death.” Neighborhood children who had mocked the missionaries as “foreign devils” when they arrived at Kalgan, now marched in the doctor's honor bearing those same banners from his home to the cemetery.
Dr. Harry Miller, who spoke at his funeral, said in part, “Though Doctor Coulston's ministry to China has been cut short, only a little over three and one-half years, a great heritage has been left to the China missionary movement through his contribution of service. He gave always of the fullness of his strength, and lastly he gave his life. The doctor's career has distinguished him as a true builder in the medical missionary program in China. His one fault was working beyond his strength.
“He was a fearless worker, yet he was cautious when others were involved. I recall having performed an operation on him somewhat over a year ago, which of necessity, required that he remain in bed for many days after his operation. A patient whose life depended on surgery came to the hospital. He gave orders for the surgical preparation, and he had the sick man prepared and placed on a cot by his bed. Then he, while lying down, reached over and successfully operated on the patient, thus saving the man's life.
This kind of ministry characterized him to the end. At the time of his death he was fully resigned, though he gladly would have lived on to do his part in the finishing of the work. To the very end he put forth cooperative effort to get well, and he bore his illness with a smile of confidence and trust. Truly his life was an inspiration to all who knew him, and there's a call to every young person to dedicate his life without reserve to the Master's service.”
His widow, Letha, returned to the U.S.A. She met Dr. Edwin A. Brooks, a Bible teacher. After their marriage she influenced him to take the medical course. Upon graduation in 1953 they were called to Taiwan to serve in the hospital there. Five years later he was asked to relieve in our Saigon Adventist Hospital in Vietnam for a year. Upon returning the U.S.A., he took anesthesiology and worked in our Hanford Hospital in Central California, until retirement and death in 1993. Letha also helped much as a nurse and was instrumental in graduating the first class of nurses in the Saigon Adventist Hospital in Vietnam in 1960.