William Hughlett

William S. Hughlett died on December 17, 1990, in Cocoa, Florida at age 87. His role as lead doctor and liaison between Wembo Nyama and Cocoa, Florida was taken over by Dr. Tom Kenaston. Hughlett and Kenaston were both honored at the opening of the Brevard Community College's new Allied Health Center on the Cocoa campus. A stained glass window was made in Dr. Hughlett's honor in his First Methodist Church, and shows him giving a child medicine. The church's fellowship hall is also named after him. In 1991, Frank Childers wrote a biography, Uncle Doctor: William S. Hughlett, M.D. missionary to the Congo 1929 - 1969, on the late missionary's life.

After retiring in 1969, he moved to Brevard County and became a teacher at Brevard Community College. At his passing in 1990, he was honored by his Methodist Church and the Brevard Community College for his medical and mission service. His three children also went on to complete international missionary work.

Hughlett returned to Cocoa, Florida permanently in 1969 after 40 years of missionary work. By this time, he was aging and losing his eyesight. He worked the final 19 years of life as a professor at the Brevard Community College and was an active member of his First United Methodist Church. He also taught in local prison, hospital, and lay ministries.

Hughlett's children also continued on to complete missionary work. Modeling after his father's work, son John Packard Hughlett joined his parents in the Congo and used his engineering degree to build waterways and complete other construction projects. He remained in the Congo with his family until 1967. Daughter Vera Hughlett worked as a missionary in West Pakistan as a nurse.

In August, 1964, Dr. Hughlett and his family were captured by Congolese, freedom-seeking rebels and put under house arrest, along with other missionaries. War tensions were rising in the Congo at the time, which led many missionaries to return home. The Hughlett family was released in October of that year when the Congolese army reoccupied Wembo Nyama. The family left the Congo five years later.

The Methodist missionary presence in the Congo was robust and still growing in 1929. Various Methodist churches, including the one Dr. Hughlett belonged to, began an effort to increase missionary numbers in the Congo. Their objectives were to spread Christianity to the Congolese people while also tending to the Congo's epidemic of leprosy and sleeping sickness, and the children orphaned by it. Dr. and Mrs. Hughlett answered a call for missionaries from their local church and left for the Congo in 1929. They were led by a strong love of God and conviction to follow God's calling. The mission trip was intended to last five years until 1934, but the couple remained in the Congo for 40 years until 1969.

In 1927, Hughlett married Violet Jane Packard and the couple lived together in Cocoa, Florida where he worked as a physician for three years. Hughlett took over his uncle's physician practice in Cocoa. Hughlett and his spouse found a connection with the Christian religion and became involved in a local First Methodist Church. He became a member of the First United Methodist Church of Cocoa in 1924. The couple would live in Cocoa together until their shift to missionary work in Wembo Nyana, Belgian Congo in 1929.

William (Bill) S. Hughlett (August 11, 1903 – December 17, 1990) was an American physician, medical missionary, and college professor. He is best known for his contributions as a medical missionary to the African continent, specifically Wembo Nyama, Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), where he worked as a generalist doctor from 1929 to 1969. He developed the Methodist Mission Hospital facilities and aided in treating an array of illnesses, including leprosy, cataracts, and venereal diseases. He also worked to bring awareness to the lack of resources and sanitary conditions in the Congo. He also acted as a liaison for communication between the mission in Wembo Nyama and his Florida church community, which coordinated the mission trip.

William S. Hughlett was born in Petersburg, Virginia in 1903 to father Rev. A. M. Hughlett. His father named him after his brother, William L. Hughlett, who was a renowned doctor and eventual mayor in the city of Cocoa, Florida. From an early age, William S. Hughlett desired to travel and become a missionary. His father did not agree with this, for he hoped for his son to become a physician in the likeness of William L. Hughlett (S. Hughlett's uncle).