Her father, Yun-bang, started attending church at an early age was an educational pioneer, establishing an elementary school in his hometown. Maria Kim later graduated from Sorae Normal School, the school that her father established, but soon afterward her mother also died, so she was left in uncle’s care.
Her uncle Pilsun Kim, who graduated from Severance Medical School, would later become a close associate of Roh Baengin, Yu Dongyeol, Yi Dongyeo, and Kim Gyusik, who formed the provisional oppositional government.
Her original name was Kim Jinsang (金眞常) and she also went by the name Kim Geunpo (金槿圃). She was commemorated in a poem by fellow independence activist Yi Kwang-su. In 1968 she was posthumously awarded of Korea"s the Order of Independence Merit, and in 1992 was designated the Independence Activist of the Month for the month of July.
Maria Kim was the third child born to Yun-bang Kim and Mong-eun Kim, landowners in Jangyeon county in South Hwanghae province.
However, he died while Maria Kim was young. Maria Kim’s household is well known for its nationalistic consciousness.
Thus while attending Yeondong Women's School, Maria Kim was influenced by the nationalistic consciousness of her uncle’s household. In 1910 Maria Kim graduated from Yeondong Women's School and worked at both at Yeondong and Sophia Women's School.
In 1914 she departed as an exchange student to Japan, traveling to Tokyo via Hiroshima, and enrolled at Tokyo Women's Academy.
Korean Independence Activism
In 1919, shortly before graduating from Tokyo Women's Academy, Kim actively participated with others, like Hwang Aedeok, in the independence movement that followed the promulgation of the February 8 Independence Declaration, a statement drafted by Korean foreign exchange students in Japan. When the March 1st Movement broke out later the same year, Kim, who had already returned to of Korea, participated in anti-Japanese protest and was subsequently arrested and detained. During this period, she was subjected to torture, and she suffered health problems throughout her life as a result.
Maria Kim was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for her involvement in the Korean Patriotic Women's Association Incident, but because her permanent lesions from torture she was granted medical leave, and with the help of American missionaries escaped to Shanghai.
In Shanghai, she became the representative of Hwanghae province, and enrolled in Nanjing’s Jinling College. In 1923, she studied at Park College and the University of Chicago as a foreign exchange student, earning a master"s degree, and left to New York to study theology.
In New York, she helped establish the Keunhwahoe, a patriotic Korean association for women, along with fellow exchange students Bak Indeok, Hwang Aedeok, among others Return to of Korea and Death
In 1933, she returned to of Korea, but was prohibited from residing in the Seoul area and from teaching in any position outside of theology by Japanese authorities.
She died in 1944 in the Pyongyang Hospital.
