Eleanor Ardel Vietti

Vietti was born in Fort Worth, Texas and had a twin sister, Teresa J. Vietti and a younger brother, Victor.[1][2][4] Vietti and her sister were both interested in science and medicine early on.[5] The family lived in Bogota, Colombia until she was around fourteen.[6] Vietti then contracted a bad strep infection and had surgery in Houston, Texas.[2] Because of her illness, she became more religious, but also was a year behind her twin sister in school.[7] Vietti attended San Jacinto High School (Houston, Texas).[2] After graduation, Vietti attended Rice University and studied for a summer at Nyack Missionary College.[6] Then she went to medical school at the University of Texas from 1950 to 1954.[6][2] She interned at the South Shore Hospital in Chicago and then did a year's residency at the General Hospital of Wichita Falls, finishing in 1956.[6]

Vietti entered missionary work around 1957 and the next year, went to South Vietnam.[8] She worked in Buôn Ma Thuột at a Christian and Missionary Alliance leper colony.[9] There was a high rate of leprosy among the Montagnard people and Vietti both treated those with leprosy and worked to prevent the disease.[10] She made house calls to people in the villages.[2] In 1961, her sister Teresa visited the leper colony.[11]

In April 1962, Vietti came back to the United States and visited with her family in Houston and St. Louis.[7][2] She also took a course in cleft-palate repair in St. Louis.[7] Her family wanted her to stay in the United States.[2] The Department of State also warned Vietti about returning to the leper colony.[2] However, Vietti chose to return to Vietnam.[2]

On May 30, 1962, Vietti, Archie E. Mitchell and Daniel A. Gerber[12] were kidnapped by 12 Viet Cong guerillas.[1][13] Vietti's ankle was injured, so it was reported that she was not tied up by the soldiers and was limping.[13] Vietti, Mitchell and Gerber were taken to the nurses' house, where the Viet Cong members lectured them, and also promised that Dr. Vietti would not be harmed.[13] The three captives were taken away by car.[13] The other nine Americans in the leper colony were left behind.[8] It was suspected that she was taken in order to work in a Viet Cong hospital.[14] A captured Viet Cong soldier told interrogators later in 1962 that Vietti was treating the Viet Cong wounded.[15]

It was believed that she was being moved from village to village and was still believed alive in 1965.[9][16] A report of a white woman asking for a Bible in a village came through in 1967.[2] In 1968, the Christian and Missionary Alliance announced at their General Council that Vietti and the other 2 missionaries captured were still alive.[17] Reports of seeing Vietti and the other two missionaries among the Montagnard villages continued into the 1970s.[2] However, by 1991, she was listed as "presumed dead" on the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action list.[18]

In 1998, Maggie O'Kane reported about Vietti and her capture on a radio special called The Only Woman Left Behind.[19] In the show, she discussed Vietti's capture, aired memories of families and friends and speculated on what had happened to Vietti.[19][20] In 2008, Nyack College honored her and other alumni who were lost in Vietnam, adding their names to a special stone bench on campus.[21]

• Archie E. Mitchell
• List of people who disappeared

• [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143148942 Find a Grave memorial

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