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Anna Ma immigrated from China to Canada in 1914, accompanying her husband, Reverend T.K. Wou Ma. Reverend Ma was summoned to Toronto, Ontario, who helped found Toronto, Ontario’s Chinese Presbyterian Church.
The Mas were important figures in Toronto’s Chinese community. They established a church at 187 Church Street and used the facilities for services, meetings, social functions and a Chinese school. In 1919, they moved the church to 124 University Avenue to accommodate a growing congregation. Anna held women’s auxiliary meetings at Knox Presbyterian Church. In her memoirs, she implies that the meetings were held apart from the rest of the Chinese congregation due to “an age old Chinese custom which did not permit women to meet men in public” (page 62).
Anna later helped establish a house at 7 Murray Street to minister to women. In 1930, the Ma family moved to a farm, where Anna gave Chinese lessons to missionaries. Rev. Ma passed away in the early 1930s, leaving Anna a widowed mother of seven children. She made ends meet by working for the church and renting out rooms of her house.
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