Granny Brand
by Dorothy Clarke Wilson
(Christian Herald Books, 1976)



Finding this book in the discards pile from a church library, Robin could tell right away why it had been discarded. Who wants to read about somebody named "Granny"--a turn-of-the-century (that's 20th century) missionary to India? The book itself is not helpful in some regards: for a biography, it's maddeningly vague about dates and other details. The story is hard to follow at times. It doesn't read like a novel—there is no climax.

For all that, it's a must-read.

"Granny" Brand (who hated this nickname—wouldn't you?) was Evelyn Harris Brand, born in 1879 somewhere in England. Beautiful, talented, intelligent, cherished by her parents and ten siblings, she went to India as a missionary around 1909. She married fellow missionary Jesse Brand around 1912, and they began pioneering work in the southern mountains of India—the "Mountains of Death"—dispensing rudimentary medical treatment, building roads and schools, adopting abandoned children, and teaching about Christ. They did all this while submitting to the detached, obstructionist decisions of a missions board that, in fact, did not support them at all: Evelyn's father did. But whatever land the couple acquired or buildings they erected with the funds provided by Mr. Harris, they turned over to the missions board.

Jesse and Evelyn had two children while ministering in these hostile conditions: Paul and Connie. Then Jesse died of blackwater fever in 1928. The missions board ordered Evelyn back to England, but she stalled, inveigled, and conned her way into returning to the mountains again and again to continue the work God had given her until her death in 1974 at age 95.

Two aspects of Evelyn's story stand out: First, our current multiculturalism, in entertaining the coolness of karma and yoga, plays down certain facts about Hinduism. It is not an equivalent of Christianity. As practiced in Evelyn's time, the native religion was horrifically cold-blooded. While the gory details are glossed over in this book (as opposed to the writings of Amy Carmichael), enough is said about the cruelty, poverty, and disease to give the reader an inkling of the incredible struggles these missionaries endured. Most of us in this country have no clue how widespread suffering is in heathen (yes, we said heathen) populations. We need to be reminded what life is like without God.

Second, Evelyn was the mother of Paul Brand, the brilliant Christian surgeon who revolutionized the treatment of leprosy first in India, then around the world. Dr. Brand also authored several books, including Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (with Philip Yancey)—a book that is high on just about everybody's reading list. To get a glimpse of this man's early family life, and the woman who imbued him with such a sense of God, is reason enough to keep Granny Brand in any library.



Evelyn and Jesse Brand with their children Connie and Paul.

See our feature on Christian Medical College at Vellore, India, and a woman who worked with Paul Brand.


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