Mildred Cable
| Mildred Cable | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Alice Mildred Cable 21 February 1878 Guildford, Surrey England |
| Died | 30 April 1952 (aged 74) Hampstead, London, England |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Missionary in China |
Alice Mildred Cable 蓋群英 (21 February 1878 – 30 April 1952) was born in Guildford. She was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China, serving with the China Inland Mission.
The daughter of John Cable, a prosperous draper in Guildford, Cable early decided to become a missionary and studied pharmacy and human sciences at London University. She was engaged to a man who had also declared his intention to become a missionary, but he changed his mind and said he would not marry her unless she abandoned her ambition. She broke off the engagement, declined to take her final examination to graduate, and joined the China Inland Mission in 1901, meeting Evangeline (Eva) French who was returning to China following her first home leave. They worked together for the rest of their lives.
Cable and French were stationed in Huozhou, Shanxi, and often traveled in the surrounding area. Eva's younger sister, Francesca, joined them in 1910 (although some sources say 1908), and they became known as the "trio." After 20 years in Huozhou, they believed that the mission should be turned over to Chinese leaders and the three applied to work in relatively unknown, largely Muslim western China. Although there were doubts that women should be assigned to this region, their proposal was accepted in 1923.
For most of the next 12 years, in the words of Mildred Cable:
"From Etzingol to Turpan, from Spring of Wine to Chuguchak, we ... spent long years in following trade-routes, tracing faint caravan tracks, searching out innumerable by-paths and exploring the most hidden oases. ... Five times we traversed the whole length of the desert, and in the process we had become part of its life."
A reviewer said of Cable and French's book, The Gobi Desert, that "this may be the best of many good books about Central Asia and the old Silk Road through the deserts of Western China."
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Wikipedia