Guide to the Nathaniel Bercovitz Papers

Nathaniel Bercovitz, Sr. was born in Constitution, Chile in 1889. His parents, Moses Bercovitz and Mary Bernstein, served here as missionaries. The family later moved to Laguna, New Mexico, where the parents served as missionaries to the Native Americans, and then to San Francisco. Bercovitz graduated from Occidental College in 1910. He then attended medical school at the University of California-San Francisco, graduating in 1914. He served his residence at the Los Angeles County Hospital.

Choosing the career of his parents, Bercovitz was appointed by the Board of Foreign Missions in 1914. In 1915 he married Elva Lorine Higgins, and they sailed for Hainan, China. Bercovitz was first stationed at Kachek, where for nine years he was superintendent of the Presbyterian mission hospital. In 1926 he was transferred, and became superintendent of the American Presbyterian Hospital at Hoihow. His work was both medical and evangelistic in nature.

Bercovitz served house arrest by the Japanese from 1939 to 1941, at which time he was expatriated to the U.S. During the war years he served as a civil physician for naval trainees at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He returned to Hainan in 1946 to continue his work as superintendent of the American Hospital in Hoihow, as well as the Hainan orphanage and leprosarium. He also supervised the medical and relief program of the Church Committee for Relief in Asia. In 1950 he was again put under house arrest, this time by Communist Chinese forces. He continued under house arrest for nearly two years, 10 months of this time confined to a small room at the hospital.

After gaining permission to return to America in 1953, Bercovitz served as medical adviser to the Synod of Southern California until his retirement in 1959. He then continued as medical director for Westminster Gardens retirement home for missionaries, and was also an active board member of several Presbyterian retirement homes and hospitals in Southern California. He was Vice Moderator of General Assembly in 1954. His wife, Elva, died in 1965, and in 1966 he married Ruth (Hislaw) Walline, widow of Edwin Walline of the China mission. Bercovitz died in 1979.