Mildred Cable (1878 - 1952) Also known as: Alice Mildred Cable Notable Achievements Missionary work throughout China in the early twentieth century, as part of the famous "Trio." Occupation/Field of Study: missionary Exploration Zone: Humanity: missionary; Location of Activity: Asia: China, Gobi Desert; Period of Activity: 1901-1950; Biography Born in 1878, English missionary Mildred Cable is representative of Victorian missionaries who traveled because of their religious beliefs. Cable was employed by the China Inland Mission to go to China in 1902 and help establish a school. She worked closely with two other missionaries, Algerians Evangeline and Francesca French, and eventually the three women decided to go into the Gobi Desert to preach the gospel. They traveled throughout the region for over 15 years, spreading Christianity and learning about Buddhism in return. Periodically they would return to civilization for supplies, then set out again. Their freedom to travel ended, however, in 1931 when a political-religious conflict in China led to military rule and oppression. The new government restricted the women to the city of Tunhwang, but after several months they managed to escape across the desert. They left China shortly thereafter and did not return until 1935, when they could only travel in the company of an official Chinese guide In their later years the women made two more trips: in 1946 they traveled to Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, and in 1947 they visited South America. Cable also wrote a first-person account of their experiences in Asia with help from Francesca French. Entitled The Gobi Desert (1945), the book includes rich descriptions of the desert's landscape and people, as well as commentary related to spirituality. For example, Cable writes: Desert dwellers have keener sight than other men, for looking out over wide spaces has adjusted their eyes to vastness, and I also learnt to turn my eyes from the too constant study of the minute to the observation of the immense. I had read about planets, stars and constellations, but now, as I considered them, I realized how little the books had profited me. My caravan guide taught me how to set a course by looking at one constellation . . . and to observe the seasons by the phase of Orion in the heavens. The quiet, forceful, regular progress of these mighty spheres indicated control, order and discipline. To me they spoke of the control of an ordered life and the obedience of a rectified mind which enables man, even in a world of chaos, to follow a God-appointed path with a precision and dignity which nothing can destroy. (Morris, pp. 216-217) Cable and the French sisters remained together until Cable's death in 1952. Publications Star Over Gobi: The Story of Mildred Cable Cecil Northcott (December 1987) Book: Biography, Juvenile; The Gobi Desert Mildred Cable (1945) : Travel Memoir/Diary/Journal;