A woman that I follow on Twitter/X, Lily Craven (@ TheAttagirls) occasionally posts a "Woman of the Day" story. Today it was missionary and social reformer Gladys Aylward who died on this day in 1970.
I found the brief story of her life very interesting so I am reposting her tweet.
Her life was the subject of a book first printed in 1957 (I believe) called "The Small Woman" (the book pulls no punches and includes a description of a beheading). This was then the basis of the film "Inn of the Sixth Happiness" where Ingrid Bergman played the role of Gladys.
Her tweet is below, but just to add some details, Gladys was the eldest of three children. She grew up in Edmonton, north London and her father was a postman. By the time of the 1921 census she was 19 and working as one of two servants for a retired Wesleyan Minister in Sheffield.
She died in Taipei, Taiwan and is buried there.
The tweet:
Woman of the Day missionary and social reformer Gladys Aylward, who died OTD in 1970 at 67, led nearly a hundred orphans to safety on a 100‐mile trek across China across the mountains and the Yellow River, fleeing from advancing Japanese invaders.
Born in 1902 in London, Gladys was just out of her teens when she responded to a call to serve overseas as a Christian missionary but she failed to pass the exams. She saved her money and bided her time. When an older missionary in Yangcheng, Jeannie Lawson, sent out a call for a young woman to carry on her work, Gladys wrote and was accepted.
She couldn’t afford the ship fare but had just enough for the train and in October 1930, set off for China. It was an arduous journey. China and Russia were engaged in an undeclared war. Gladys went via Vladivostok, Japan and Tientsin by train, then bus, then mule, finally arriving in Yangcheng.
Together, she and Jeannie started an inn for mule drivers, the Inn of Eight Happinesses. Neither woman was trusted by the locals but when a trade caravan came past, Gladys grabbed the rein of the lead mule and turned it into their courtyard. The mule went willingly; courtyards meant food, water and rest for the night. The other mules followed so the muleteers had no choice. They were given good food, warm beds and their mules were well cared for. The first Chinese Gladys learned was “We have no bugs, we have no fleas. Good, good, good, come, come, come” but after the first few weeks, she didn’t need to kidnap customers. They turned in at the inn by choice.
Within a year, Jeannie died, leaving Gladys to run the mission alone with the help of her Chinese cook, Yang. Her reputation grew, so much so that the local Mandarin asked her to become a foot-inspector. Foot binding had just been made illegal. For centuries, women’s feet had been tightly bandaged from infancy, making walking painful, but it satisfied men’s notions of graceful femininity. Only a woman with her own feet unbound could enter women’s quarters to inspect unbound feet without scandal. Gladys accepted and was remarkably successful at a time when other inspectors met with resistance and even violence.
In 1936, Gladys officially became a Chinese citizen, living as frugally as the people around her.
When Japanese forces bombed and occupied Yangcheng in 1938 driving survivors into the mountains, Gladys gathered together nearly a hundred children aged between four and eight and led them on a 100-mile trek across the mountains and the Yellow River.
"The eagle that soars in the upper air does not worry itself how it is to cross rivers."
At the end of the 27‐day march, she was almost unconscious and delirious with typhus and fever, but she achieved her mission: to bring the children to safety at an orphanage in Sian.
"Life is pitiful, death so familiar, suffering and pain so common, yet I would not be anywhere else. Do not wish me out of this or in any way seek to get me out, for I will not be got out while this trial is on. These are my people, God has given them to me, and I will live or die with them for Him and His glory."
If you remember an old film made in 1958 called The Inn of The Sixth Happiness, that was based on Gladys. When it was reviewed by Newsweek, a reader dismissed it as fiction: "In order for a movie to be good, the story should be believable!"
Determined women are very, very good at achieving the most unbelievable things.
"I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China. I don’t know who it was. It must have been a man, a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing...and God looked down and saw Gladys Aylward...and God said, ‘Well, she’s willing.’"
https://x.com/TheAttagirls/status/2007349212556484902