Dorothy Chacko

Dorothy Dunning Chacko (1904 - December 30, 1992) was an American social worker, humanitarian and medical doctor, whose efforts were reported behind the establishment of a lepers' colony at Bethany village, in Ganaur, Sonepat district in the Indian state of Haryana. She was a Hall of Famer of the County of Delaware, Pennsylvania a recipient of the Take the Lead Honour from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania and the Smith College Medal. She was honoured by the Government of India in 1972 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.

Dorothy Chacko died on 30 December 1992 at her Chester home at the age of 88 and was buried at the Chester Rural Cemetery. Joseph and Dorothy Chacko had three children, eldest son, Joseph Chacko, an engineer based in California, the younger son, John Chacko, a medical doctor practicing in Regina, Canada and the youngest, Mary Russel, working in Hawai as a congregational minister.

Dorothy Chacko was honoured with the Smith College Medal by her alma mater, Smith College, in 1970 and she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware County, Pennsylvania in 1996. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1972. The Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania awarded her the Take the Lead Honour and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, the YWCA, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society also honoured her on different occasions.

In 1967, Joseph Chacko accepted the post of a visiting professor at the Pennsylvania Military College, (present day Widener University) and Chacko family moved to Chester, Pennsylvania. She continued her medical practice by joining Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Upland as a staff physician at its maternal and infant-care clinics. Here, she co-founded Chester Art Guild to promote art among the Chester residents and was active with Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of which she served as the president from 1974 to 1976.

In 1930, she met the Indian pastor, C. Joseph Chacko, who had come to US (1924) for his doctoral research in international law at the University of Columbia and they got married in 1932. She moved to India when Joseph Chacko returned to his home land in June 1932 to join as a faculty member of international law at the University of Punjab. When India got independence in 1947, she acquired Indian citizenship and continued her practice in India.

Dorothy Dunning was born in 1904 in Kyoto, Japan to congregational missionary couple, Morton Dexter and Mary Ward Dunning as one among their six children, when they were working in Japan. She did her early schooling there and moving to the US at the age of 16, she completed her school education at the Bradford Academy, Massachusetts in 1921. She did her initial college education at the Smith College in Northampton from where she graduated in 1925, standing first in the examinations. Choosing a career in medicine, she secured a graduate degree in medicine from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York in 1929 and did her internship at the Metropolitan Hospital Center, New York becoming the first female resident of the hospital. She also passed an advanced course in Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1932.