Lina Mathilda TRUDINGER

TRUDINGER, LINA (MATHILDA) (NÉE HOOPMANN) (b. Yorketown, SA, 8 Jan 1880, d. Adelaide, SA, 15 March 1967). Missionary.

Lina, a daughter of a Lutheran pastor, was greatly influenced by her mother who had an intense missionary zeal. Trained as a music teacher, Lina took up nursing, completing both her general and midwifery certificates at the Adelaide and Queen Victoria hospitals respectively in preparation for missionary service. Lina could not remember a time when she had not known and loved her Lord. She was accepted for service with the Sudan United Mission. She was engaged at that time to Dr Ronald Trudinger (q.v.) who was already serving on the mission field. They were married on 11 Dec 1917 during Dr Trudinger's first furlough.

Mrs Trudinger together with Miss Lillian Thomas who accompanied them back to the mission in Sudan, were the first women missionaries to the southern Sudan. Living conditions were extremely primitive, there were no modern conveniences whatever. Besides the education of their children, three of whom were born in Africa, Lina Trudinger taught in the mission school, assisted her husband in the medical work at operations and in the dispensary, and cared for her family during her husband's absences on evangelistic tours. On two occasions Lina Trudinger returned to Adelaide to stay with the children, for four years during the depression and for three years just after World War Two. She accompanied her husband for the last three years of their service. They returned to Adelaide in 1954.

R Becker, Geschichte der Familie Schammer (Herrnhut, 1922); P J Spartalis, To the Nile and Beyond (ANZEA Publishers, 1981); Burnside Christian Church Newsletter, April 1967

C D TRUDINGER