Indelible Grace Hymnbook

Born: Cir­ca 1850, Do­ver, Eng­land.

Died: Jan­u­a­ry 18, 1917, Penk­ridge (about 50 miles from Um­ta­li), Zim­ba­bwe.

Buried: Penk­ridge, Zim­bab­we.

As a teen­ag­er, Stead felt called to be a mis­sion­ary. She went to Amer­i­ca around age 21, and lived for a while in Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio. At­tend­ing a camp meet­ing in Ur­ba­na, Ohio, she felt the mis­sion­ary call­ing ev­en more strong­ly, but was un­a­ble to go to Chi­na as she want­ed due to her frail health. She mar­ried a Mr. Stead in 1875. Tra­gic­al­ly, her hus­band died off Long Is­land, New York, while try­ing to res­cue a drown­ing boy.

Around 1880, Stead went to South Af­ri­ca, and served as a mis­sion­ary some 15 years. She re­mar­ried, to Rob­ert Wode­house of that count­ry. She re­turned to Amer­i­ca in 1895 to re­cov­er her health, but once again went in­to mis­sions in Rho­de­sia in 1901. Her daugh­ter Li­ly (who sur­vived the ac­ci­dent that killed her fa­ther) mar­ried D. A. Car­son and be­came a mis­sion­ary like her mo­ther.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal