A local lady, Jane Tomlinson - an inspiration to never give up!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6978115.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2585103.stm
Rest in peace Jane
March - Women's "Herstory" Month
by compound complex 51 Replies latest jw experiences
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Sad emo
Historical figures for me are Elizabeth Fry who did a lot for prison reform, the homeless and children during the 18th-19th centuries.
Also Helen Keller who developed sign language for deaf-blind people, Marie Curie (discovered polonium and radium) and Gladys Aylward who helped remove the practice of foot-binding in China and led many children to safety when the Japanese invaded.
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WOMEN'S HISTORY
My heart is full of praise that one so insignificant, uneducated, and ordinary in every way could be used to His glory for the blessing of His people in poor persecuted China."
Gladys Alward was born in London in February of 1902 in a working class family. She entered the work force at age 14 as a parlor maid, otherwise know as a house servant. It included heavy chores, long hours, and low pay. Gladys had been going to church off and on in her life. She was familiar with the message but had no personal relationship with God. One night a stranger confronted her and asked about her spiritual need which convinced her to go see the pastor. She talked with the pastor’s wife and was saved.
Gladys' life was changed after she was converted. She dreamed of going to another country and sharing about Jesus as a missionary. This led her to the China Inland Mission. She enrolled but failed.
She worked at other jobs and saved money. One day she heard of a 73 year old missionary, Mrs. Larson, who needed a young assistant to help her in China. So with all the money she had saved, she bought a train ticket on the Trans-Siberian railway. Finally on October 15th, 1932, Gladys said goodbye to her friends and family and set out for China. She went across England and Europe without any troubles. But eastern Russia was a dangerous war zone as it struggled to take advantage of China. When she wasn’t allowed to go any farther on the train, she got off and walked in the snow to the nearest station. Her passport was stolen from her. Because of these prroblems she was forced to take a boat to Japan and then to China. From there she rode a train, a bus, and a mule to get to the city of Yangchen. She only could have gotten there with the help of God
With not much of a welcome party Gladys started missionary work at an inn for muleteers. At the inn was Mrs. Larson and Yang, a Chinese Christian, the cook. The inn would give shelter for the mules and a place for the muleteers to eat and sleep. While the muleteers would eat, Mrs. Larson and Gladys would tell them Bible stories. But because Gladys was a foreigner she was not easily trusted.
Gladys was slowly but surely learning the language. But only 8 months after she arrived, Mrs. Larson became sick and died. Now Gladys had no way of getting any income. A few weeks later, the Mandarin of Yangchen came and asked Gladys to become the official foot inspector. This job was to go around and tell people that binding girl’s feet was illegal and then to unbound them. The Mandarin needed someone with big unbound feet. Gladys accepted knowing that she could spread the gospel more.
So she went visiting houses and revisiting houses again to check on the girls and people started to get to know her. Two years after she went to China the Mandarin asked Gladys to stop a riot in the prison. Depending only on God, Gladys walked into the prison. The men were killing each other and it was a bloody mess. Gladys commanded them to stop and tell her what was wrong. They were tired of being cooped up and needed food and work. From then on Gladys was known as “Ai-weh-deh” which means “Virtuous one.”
Once she saw a beggar on the road with a very sick child beside her. She bought this child for nine pence, for which she was later called. She fed her and adopted her. Her family grew. One day Ninepence brought in a boy saying that she would eat less in order to keep this boy, later naming him Less. In 1936 Gladys became a Chinese citizen and continued dressing like the people around her.
In 1938, the war happened between Japan and China which later resulted in WWII. Japan was invading China. Japan started dropping bombs on Yengchen. All the people escaped into the mountains and the Japanese came into the city. Then the Nationalist army drove them out and the people settled back into regular life until more bombs were dropped on Yangchen and the whole thing would start over again. But by now Gladys had a ransom on her head - dead or alive. She was doing a little spying on the Japanese.
Gladys had about 100 orphans that she felt needed to go to a safer city. Gladys with 100 children trekked for 12 days toward the city of Sian to an orphanage. On the 12th day she was at the yellow river with no way to get across. She and the children prayed and sang to God. A Chinese officer on patrol heard them and took them across. Finally safe in Sian, Gladys collapsed with Typhoid and delirium for a couple of days.
Once Gladys got better she resumed ministering in the new region to lepers, prisoners, and she also started a church. Gladys was still very weak and ill and never quite regained her strength. In 1949, after nearly 20 years in China, she finally went home to England. There she received lots of publicity and even dined with Queen Elizabeth. She stayed in London for 10 years because China had closed its doors because of Communism. She wasn’t comfortable in England. When she went back, she went to Hong Kong and Formosa and opened orphanages and ministered to people there until her death in China in 1970. She was 68.
Gladys was a very faithful missionary and although experienced lots of troubles, she kept her faith and hope in God. In the world’s eyes, she may not have done very much, but she helped many “small” people and did without so that many could know the richness that comes from God. The world would be a better place if there were more people like the "insignificant, uneducated, and ordinary" Gladys Aylward.
Rit Nosotro
Gladys Aylward was portrayed by Ingrid Bergman in the 1958 film "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness."
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WOMEN'S HISTORY
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Betty sure has her hands full: baskets (very plural baskets) of eggs, firewood and loads of wet laundry (hung above STOVE and slapping her in the face while she cooks dinner by the romantic flickerings of a kerosene lantern). She's actually ventured into the bowels, er, the oven, of her recalcitrant cooker in a stab to bake bread. Out of the dark hole crawls a squeaky, pale lump of half-baked dough that she promptly clutches to her bosom and rushes over to Ma Kettle for a prognosis.
'The g.d. thing stinks!' Ma bellows, as she tosses the still-born loaf to her pack of skinny mongrels on the back porch.
Betty soon discovers that she has entered Bakers' Heaven ...
THE EGG AND I, Betty MacDonald
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Gavroche79
A woman I really look up to, out of many, is Aphra Behn, who was the first woman in the United Kingdom to earn a living as a writer; she wrote in the late 1600s, before her death in 1689 (or thenabouts), so she faced discrimination and everything that comes with it for being a woman in what was then thought of as a man's domain.
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WOMEN'S HISTORY
Margaret Rutherford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchDame Margaret Rutherford
Margaret Rutherford as Miss MarpleBorn Margaret Rutherford
May 11, 1892 ( 1892-05-11 )
Balham, London, EnglandDied May 22, 1972 (aged 80)
Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, EnglandSpouse(s) Stringer Davis (1945-1972) [ show ] Awards won Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress
1963 The V.I.P.sGolden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1964 The V.I.P.sDame Margaret RutherfordDBE (May 11, 1892 – May 22, 1972) was an Academy Award-winning English character actress who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
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[ hide ][edit] Biography
Born in the South London suburb of Balham she was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. William Rutherford Benn (William Rutherford). Her father suffered from mental illness for many years, and on 4 March1883, he battered his father to death. [1]
Rutherford made her stage debut at the Old Vic in 1925 at the age of thirty-three. However, her physical appearance was such that romantic heroines were almost out of the question, and she soon established her name in comedy, appearing in many of the most successful British films of the mid-20th century. "I never intended to play for laughs. I am always surprised that the audience thinks me funny at all," Rutherford wrote in her autobiography. [2] In most of these films, she had originally played the role on stage. She married the actor Stringer Davis in 1945. They often appeared together in films.
In the 1950s, Rutherford and Davis adopted the writer Gordon Langley Hall, then in his twenties. Hall later had gender reassignment surgery and became Dawn Langley Simmons, under which name she wrote a biography of Rutherford in 1983.
In 1961, Rutherford first played the film role with which she was most often associated in later life, that of Miss Marple in a series of films loosely-based on the novels of Agatha Christie. Rutherford won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe for The V.I.P.s (1963), as the absent-minded Duchess of Brighton, opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
She was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1967. Rutherford was a cousin of the radical left-wing Labour politicianTony Benn. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of her life.
Margaret Rutherford is buried along with her husband, Stringer Davis, in the graveyard of St. James Church, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England.
[edit] Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes 1936 Talk of the Devil Housekeeper Dusty Ermine Evelyn Summers aka Miss Butterby, old gang moll Troubled Waters Bit role uncredited 1937 Missing, Believed Married Lady Parke Catch As Catch Can Maggie Carberry Big Fella Nanny uncredited Beauty and the Barge Mrs. Baldwin 1941 Spring Meeting Aunt Bijou Quiet Wedding Magistrate 1943 Yellow Canary Mrs. Towcester The Demi-Paradise Rowena Ventnor 1944 English Without Tears Lady Christabel Beauclerk 1945 Blithe Spirit Madame Arcati 1947 While the Sun Shines Dr. Winifred Frye Meet Me at Dawn Madame Vernore 1948 Miranda Nurse Carey 1949 Passport to Pimlico Professor Hatton-Jones 1950 The Happiest Days of Your Life Muriel Whitchurch Her Favorite Husband Mrs. Dotherington 1951 The Magic Box Lady Pond 1952 Curtain Up Catherine Beckwith/Jeremy St. Claire Miss Robin Hood Miss Honey The Importance of Being Earnest Miss Letitia Prism Castle in the Air Miss Nicholson 1953 Innocents in Paris Gwladys Inglott Trouble in Store Miss Bacon 1954 The Runaway Bus Miss Cynthia Beeston Mad About Men Nurse Carey Aunt Clara Clara Hilton 1955 An Alligator Named Daisy Prudence Croquet 1957 The Smallest Show on Earth Mrs. Fazackalee Just My Luck Mrs. Dooley 1959 I'm All Right Jack Aunt Dolly 1961 On the Double Lady Vivian Murder, She Said Miss Jane Marple 1963 Murder at the Gallop Miss Jane Marple The Mouse on the Moon Grand Duchess Gloriana XIII The V.I.P.s The Duchess of Brighton Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe1964 Murder Most Foul Miss Jane Marple Murder Ahoy! Miss Jane Marple 1965 Chimes at Midnight Mistress Quickly The Alphabet Murders Miss Jane Marple uncredited cameo 1967 A Countess from Hong Kong Miss Gaulswallow Arabella Princess Ilaria The Wacky World of Mother Goose Mother Goose voice -
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"... faith, Sir, we are here to Day, and gone to Morrow."
-- Aphra Behn, The Lucky Chance The Aphra Behn Page"All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds. It is she--shady and amorous as she was--who makes it not quite fantastic for me to say to you tonight: Earn five hundred a year by your wits."
-- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's OwnAphra Behn, the first professional woman writer in English, lived from 1640 to 1689. After John Dryden, she was the most prolific dramatist of the Restoration, but it is for her pioneering work in prose narrative that she achieved her place in literary history.
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WOMEN'S HISTORY
And, of course, there's Erma Bombeck ...
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Princess Daisy Boo
Oprah
The Aphra Behn Page