Visionary approach to development
In the early years of the 20th century, some remedies and precautions were becoming available, and Mary provided vaccination against the dreaded smallpox, and set up mission hospitals for treating illnesses and injuries suffered by the people. Mary's dedicated work with the people and her almost total integration was crowned in an official request by the Governor that she combined her missionary activities with an administrative position as the first woman vice consul of Britain.
Roads were being driven into the interior, and military expeditions were starting to make use of motor vehicles. She was constantly urging the Foreign Mission Board in Edinburgh to finance extensions of her work in the interior. She demonstrated a true missionary spirit through religion and evangelism, through education and literacy, in social justice and health care as well as in economic development.
The trading markets which she had enthusiastically encouraged attracted people from far afield, and her attempts to reach out to them were the natural consequences of these contacts she made. Gradually the long awaiting money was forthcoming and what a relieve this was. She continued to move even further into the heartland as new missionaries took over responsibility for the posts vacated, with faith and sincerity, courage and love.
The tribes of old Itu had heard of the white Ma, and they anticipated her coming with mixed feelings of fear and love. Her blessed life made winning them an easier task than she faced at Okoyong. Here she repeated the successes of Okoyong. With the aid of her converted boys and girls from Okoyong the Gospel spread rapidly among the tribes.
Through the Board's blessings she opened a station at Itu, an old slave market, and later built the Mary Slessor Hospital Itu, which was supervised by a medical missionary. It became a haven of peace and sanctuary for the people, it was a place where life was created and sustained. A place that provided hope and succour to the people and where every type of sickness was treated.
The hospital structures were fascinating from an architectural point of view, it today, however, finds its self in a sorry state, merely a shadow of what they once were: ruins taken over by crawling creatures such as lizards and snakes, all been disused and discarded, faded into our past.
In 1912 her health demanded a rest. She vacationed in the Canary Islands where she was treated splendidly, and she was soon able to return to her jungle home.
In August of 1914 when World War I broke out, she was scheduling a visit to Scotland, but traveling conditions were unsafe and she postponed the trip. Later in the year she succumbed to a fever. The Christian doctor from the Slessor Hospital at Itu treated her.