Harley, Winifred J.

George Way Harley, Methodist missionary, physician, blacksmith, geographer, anthropologist, and researcher was born in Asheville, North Carolina on August 8, 1894. Harley's father was a Methodist minister and from an early age Harley aspired to become a missionary. After graduating from Trinity College, Durham, N.C. in 1916, Harley taught high school science in the North Carolina high schools. In 1923 Harley earned his M.D. from Yale University and interned at Hartford Municipal Hospital. On August 4, 1923 Harley married Winifred Frances Jewell, who was raised in Merrimac, MA. After graduating from Bates College and teaching high school, Winifred studied at Yale University where she met George.

After studying at the Kennedy School of Missions (Hartford Seminary Foundation) and the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, in 1925 George Harley traveled with his wife to West Africa and founded the Ganta Mission, Ganta, Liberia. Here the Harleys remained involved for the next thirty-five years.

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