Dr William Wells Thoms and his wife Beth Scudder Thoms served in the Middle East through the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church in America from 1931 until retiring in 1970.

They were themselves the children of missionaries, with Dr Thoms’ parents posted in the Middle East and Beth’s in India.

Dr Thoms was well-known in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, and his parents, both doctors, arrived in Bahrain in 1900. They built the Mason Memorial Hospital, now called the American Mission Hospital (AMH), which opened in 1903.

That same year, their son William Wells Thoms was born. His father, Dr Sharon Thoms, was the hospital’s first chief medical officer. Sadly, his mother, Dr Marion Wells Thoms, died in Bahrain in 1905 when the young Dr Thoms was only two years old. His father later died in Oman in 1913 while working at a mission hospital there. At that time, the young Dr Thoms was just 10 years old.

Despite being orphaned at a young age, he grew up to study medicine and surgery in the USA. Like his parents, he left behind the comforts of American life to return and serve as a doctor in the Arab world. Before starting his work, he went to Basra, Iraq, to learn Arabic.

In 1932, while still in Basra for his language studies, Dr Louis Dame of AMH in Bahrain wrote to Dr Thoms, asking him to come to Bahrain earlier than planned. Dr Dame had been urgently called to Riyadh by Ibn Saud, the ruler of Najd (soon to be the first king of Saudi Arabia).

So at 29, Dr Thoms returned to Bahrain. The customs pier he mentions in his recollections was near Bab Al Bahrain (which was constructed 17 years later, in 1949). The Mission compound was where Al Raja School now stands. These are his words describing his return in 1932:

“When I left Bahrain I was about five years old and naturally memories were vague but as I went along many scenes came back. The British Indian steamers are now about twice the size of those we used to travel on...

“Landing used to mean a two-hour sail, then being ferried in by a row-boat, followed by a ride on a donkey, to scramble finally upon terra firma. Now, launches make the trip in one-fifth of the time, and land one right by the ‘Customs pier’.

“On arriving, I preferred to walk to the house to get the maximum kick out of the thrill of ‘coming home’.

“Our compound used to stand off by itself, like an outcast, now the Mission property is no longer outside the pale but the city has extended its arms to engulf it, symbolically accepting the Mission as part of the community and no longer as an alien group.

“We walked for half a mile, on the new boulevard that was built along the sea-front.

“Several new houses, built of coral stone, covered with glistening white plaster, belonging to government officials and rich Arab merchants faced the sea on this road. And in the yard of some of them grew beautiful tropical trees which added brilliant splashes of green and red to what was otherwise a white and blue landscape.”

This walk that Dr Thoms described took him from what is now Bab Al Bahrain to the location of the current Al Raja School and AMH in Manama.

After spending a few years working in Bahrain, Dr Thoms moved to the AMH in Kuwait. Later, he worked in Oman, where he became Oman’s only surgeon during the Second World War, according to his biography written by Dr David G Dickason.

Dr Thoms served in the mission hospitals of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman for many years. He spent 31 years in Oman until his retirement in 1970. He passed away in 1971 and is buried in Oman.

His biography, Faith, Hope, and Love: The Hakeem’s Journey was published by the A C Van Raalte Institute of Hope College, Michigan, USA.

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