Early Life
Aylward was born of a working-class family in Edmonton, London in 1902. Her parents were Thomas John Aylward and Rodina Florence Aylward (nee Whiskin). Her siblings were Laurence, and Violet. Although she became a domestic worker (housemaid) at an early age, she always had an ambition to go overseas as a missionary, and studied with great determination in order to be fitted for the role, only to be turned down because her academic background was inadequate and the China Inland Mission to which she applied was convinced that it was not possible to learn the language at her age.
Her determination was such that, in 1932, she spent her life savings on a passage to Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, China. The perilous trip took her across Siberia.
Read more about this topic: Gladys Aylward
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Mormon colonization south of this point in early times was characterized as “going over the Rim,” and in colloquial usage the same phrase came to connote violent death.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The deadly monotony of Christian country life where there are no beggars to feed, no drunkards to credit, which are among the moral duties of Christians in cities, leads as naturally to the outvent of what Methodists call “revivals” as did the backslidings of the people in those days.”
—Corra May Harris (1869–1935)