Behind the Red Curtain: Mary Reed Dewar in her own words

At twenty-three, nurse Mary Reed Dewar leaves an orderly New Jersey childhood for a war-bruised China—and discovers how quickly a life of faith can collide with history. Packed onto the Marine Lynx, a converted troopship bound for China, she watches the Golden Gate slip into haze as the journey begins.

In Peiping (today’s Beijing), 1947–48, Mary prepares for her first mission, pedaling through dust-choked hutongs, studying language by ear, and learning medicine amid hyperinflation and scarcity. What she finds, and who she becomes, are shaped quickly as she finally arrives in rural China for her first mission assignment in February 1948.

Then comes the moment that makes headlines back “Four Missionaries Missing in China.” As front lines of the Red Revolution shift across Shansi Province, a simple supply trip becomes a vanishing act, and Mary’s family can only wait and pray across an ocean of silence.

Told in Mary’s unmistakable voice—braided from letters, news clippings, and recent conversations with her family—this deeply human memoir traces a young woman’s passage from conviction to courage. It is a story of service without guarantees, of friendship in a language learned one tone at a time, and of the ordinary life that make endurance possible.