Gilman, Alfred and Gertrude

Alfred A. Gilman was born on August 3, 1878 in North Platte, Nebraska, to Mary Hubbard Kramph Gilman and Platt Jewel Gilman. Alfred graduated from high school at 13, the University of Nebraska at 19, and Philadelphia Divinity School in 1901. He was ordained an Episcopal priest in August, 1902 and soon left for Hankow, China. Gertrude Carter Gilman, daughter of the Reverend Frederick Brewerton and Fanny Lawrence Carter, was born in Long Island, New York on May 10, 1874. Gertrude attended Wellesley, and continued study at the Philadelphia Training School. The Episcopal Church assigned her to Hankow, China, where she arrived in 1901, the year following the bloody Boxer rebellion. The couple married on February 22, 1905. Their first child, John Platt, was in 1906, but died suddenly two and a half years later. The Gilmans found great joy in their younger children, Frederick (1907), Louise (1911), and Edward (1913). Two years after their marriage Alfred had become priest at the junior high school he had organized. In 1912 he was a delegate at the creation of The Chinese Holy Catholic Church, and became president of Boone University in 1916. Gertrude taught Sunday School and English classes. She led the Women's Auxiliary as president, treasurer, and educational secretary. She was an active evangelist within the local Chinese communities, raising money when needed through rummage sales and working with the Christian United Poor Relief Association. Gertrude and Alfred together helped found the Chinsan Christian Community to promote flood relief. Gertrude continually opened their home to the needy, especially children. Although the Chinese government required missions to register property in 1924, Alfred was able to preserve the Hankow mission through contacts and friends in the government, and became acting president of the new Central China University, or Huachung University. In 1925, as Bishop of Hankow, Alfred initiated a turnover of Church leadership to Chinese Christians. In 1936 Gertrude died of pneumonia. When war began in 1937, after Gertrude's death, Alfred negotiated survival of the missions through most of World War II. He retired in 1946, but was recalled to Hankow until 1948. Tensions within China, however, caused him to spend his remaining years in the United States until his death in 1966.