The Small Woman - The Heroic Story of Gladys Aylward

Evans Bros Ltd, 1958

The story of Gladys Aylward, known in China as The Small Woman because of her short stature, barely five feet high, and yet great in heart and courage. A parlourmaid in London, Gladys saved up and set off for China overland where she took up a one-woman missionary outpost in southern Shansi district. In her efftorts to reach the heart of the peasant Chinese she started the Inn of Eight Happinesses and became Foot Inspector to the Mandarin of Yang Cheng. Single-handedly she quelled a mutiny in a prison and converted the Mandarin to Christianity. Then came the japanese, to bomb, ravage and kill. Gladys, after being battered by rifle butts, gathered up one hundred homeless Chinese children and led them on a terrible 12-day journey over the mountains to the Yellow River, only to find that crossing was forbidden. She took the children from one refugee camp to another, finally seeing them safely transferred to the care of the National Relief Organization at Fufeng. After recovering her health, after 20 years in China, she returned to the UK to lecture. Later she returned to missionary work in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan where she died in 1970...