Guided by Grace: The Kathleen Mallory Story
By Rosalie Hall Hunt (Courier)
Biographers face the daunting task of highlighting a subject’s achievements while offering a compelling narrative that reveals the individual’s humanity with all its tragedies and triumphs, failures and successes, joys and regrets. The challenge becomes even more profound when the person’s story begins in Alabama in the period following the Civil War and ends in the decade after World War II.
In Guided by Grace: The Kathleen Mallory Story, Rosalie Hall Hunt has brought to life the woman who followed the legendary Annie Armstrong as corresponding secretary of national Woman’s Missionary Union.
Kathleen Moore Mallory successfully led WMU through two world wars, the Great Depression, expansion of publications and age-level organizations, the move of headquarters from Baltimore to Birmingham, and a close relationship with Nannie Helen Burroughs and National Baptist women. She earned the admiration of Southern Baptist Convention leaders, including the presidents of the Home Mission Board and Foreign Mission Board, along with missiologist W.O. Carver at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They called the elegant woman known for her blue dresses and pearls the “Tiny Dynamo” as she skillfully led Southern Baptist women to help pay off both mission boards’ debts.
Born into a prominent family, Kathleen Mallory’s lawyer father served as Selma’s mayor and as president of the Alabama Baptist Convention. Her mother led women at First Baptist Church to meet needs in Selma, and her children followed her lead. When Kathleen committed her life to Christ, she did so with her whole being. During her studies at Goucher College in Baltimore, she met Annie Armstrong and fell in love with young doctor Janney Lupton. His tragic and untimely death before the engaged couple could marry propelled the young woman into the life she had not planned but for which God had prepared and gifted her.
From reams of correspondence, Hunt skillfully weaves Kathleen Mallory’s thoughts into the story. Taking the reader inside her head and heart, the biographer doesn’t downplay her struggles but shows how she overcame them with grace, tireless effort and long hours on her knees. May we follow her example.
Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president
Texas WMU and Baptist General Convention of Texas
Waco
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