Just before the Second World War , Samuel Stagg was recruited into U.S. Navy intelligence ; none of his work in this job , however , has come to light . His wife Mary Boyd Stagg ( 1893-1944 ) then took over as pastor of the Cosmopolitan Church , becoming the first female ordained a Protestant minister in the Philippines . " Mother " Stagg and members of the church were active in humanitarian relief work , distributing food and medicine , and performing welfare activities for displaced persons , fugitives from the Japanese ( Chinese business and community leaders ) , and resistance fighters . Betrayed by a Japanese double-agent , Franco Vera Reyes , Mary and her friends were arrested by the Japanese in January 1944 . They were interrogated and tortured at Fort Santiago in Manila by the Kempeitai . On 25 , 28 , 29 , or probably 30 August 1944 , Dr. Hawthorne Darby , Helen Jonaline Wilk , Mary Boyd Stagg , Blanche Jurika , and another woman named Sybil were taken to the Cementerio del Norte where they were beheaded and buried . In 1956 Darby , Wilk , and Mary Stagg were posthumously conferred the Philippine Legion of Honor , and were also awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States government . Their remains have been exhumed and re-interred at Cosmopolitan Church
Medal of Freedom
Medal of Freedom (1945)
Samuel Stagg