![]() Soon they had left Yangcheng behind them. They watched her lovingly as she marched along with them, making sure that the stragglers and younger ones weren’t left behind, and keeping the more daring boys in check with strong blasts on her whistle. In Chinese her name meant “The Virtuous One”, and the mission children knew her only as this. And they all had faith in Ai-weh-deh, the small Englishwoman who was their friend and leader.Īi-weh-deh would guide them and protect them from the Japanese soldiers who were devastating the nearby towns and villages. To many of them the journey was a wonderful adventure. They knew they might not reach Sian alive, but despite this they showed few signs of fear. Singing hymns at the top of their voices, they left the only real home most of them had known, heading towards the mountains and the walled city of Sian, in North China. ![]() Shortly after sunrise, the band of orphan and refugee children started out on their long march to safety. The children at first called her a “foreign devil”, and threw dried mud after her in the street.Īfter they had eaten, the muleteers would settle down to listen while Gladys Aylward told them stories from the Bible. Tired, footsore and half starved, the children straggled on, day after day, across the mountains, sustained only by the courage and encouragement of the frail little women who was leading them to freedom. I’m just glad she agreed to tell her story.Gladys Aylward and the March of the Little Children Gladys, herself, never saw the film and didn’t understand why anyone would be interested in her life. The book had by then been made into the popular movie Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman. This biography was first published in 1957, and the edition I read had an epilogue, added in 1969. So Gladys saved the fare for a third-class passage on the Trans-Siberia Express, and set out for China trusting that God would show her the way. She heard of a lone woman, Mrs Lawson, working in a remote area of China who hoped to be able to pass along her work to a younger woman. But she felt called by God to become a missionary in China, and even though no established organization would consider her application she was determined to fulfill God’s wish. She had quit school at age 14, having never passed a single examination (per her own recollection), and had worked as a parlourmaid. In 1930 she left England for China entirely on her own volition. What an extraordinary woman Gladys Aylward was. However, I could not find the book in the GoodReads catalogue under that name, so chose this edition. NOTE The book was originally titled The Small Woman, and this was the title on the edition I read. A bit of googling turns up photos of the location today, and Wikipedia rounds out Gladys' life story. The book's alternative title reflect that of the 1958 film version staring Ingrid Bergman, but it is also a misnomer the location referred to was actually called the Inn of Eight Happinesses. Burgess is very fond of his subject, but he uses an overly fawning tone that infantilizes her character (as the novel's original title suggests.) Fortunately the inspiring story he has to work with succeeds at shining through, as does Gladys' courage and determination. It is a highly romanticized but presumably factual account of the missionary work conducted by Gladys Aylward, a young woman of London, England who journeyed to China on her own hard-earned dime in the 1930s with little idea of what she was embarking on. Forty years later I was lucky to trip over this full copy of the story at our library's book sale. I first discovered the Reader's Digest version as a child and it captivated me even then. How a story this brilliant can ever go out of print astonishes me.
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