Born in a weakened state, Bird died in 1914 at the age of fifty-five leaving behind a vibrant medical ministry in Iran.
Mary Bird was born into a family filled with Christian bishops, clergy, politicians, travellers, explorers, and philanthropists.
[1] When she was five years old, a missionary guest of her father's told her stories of Africa, inspiring her to pledge her life to Christian missions.
[2] In 1891, Bird was accepted by the CMS to travel to Iran and work there as a missionary pioneering women's ministry among the Persians.
Before she left, Bird prepared by studying for a few months at "The Willows", a training college for women workers in Stoke Newington, England.
CMS ministry to specifically women in Iran did not develop in full until Bird was contacted to pursue this area of missions.
In England, she had been considered too weak to work in medicine but Bird saw it as her duty to provide what medical care she could even though she had received no formal training.
[5] In the last three and a half years of Bird’s time in Iran, ten doctors and six nurses had taken over her work in Isfahan, Yezd, and Kerman.
Her primary concern in Iran was to evangelize the Persians and she included this in her medical work by praying with her patients, speaking to them about the Christian faith, and conducting Bible studies and meetings.
Bird often wrote of “spies” [6] sent by the mullahs who would infiltrate her Bible studies and report back to their superiors or who would sit outside her dispensary and warn away patients.
Besides her constant written communication with her family, friends, and the CMS headquarters in England, Bird wrote a book in 1899, Persian Women and Their Creed, which outlines some of the CMS missionary work among Iranian women and children, Bird's observations of the Iranian culture, and some personal accounts of medical work and converts.