t sorrow came to her in
the death of her father. They had always been comrades, and she had often
accompanied him on his preaching tours into the country. It was on one of
these tours, made during the time of the Boxer uprising, that Pastor Stone
received the injuries at the hands of a mob which were probably the cause
of his death. The news was a great blow to Anna, but she bore it quietly
and bravely, and when a few days later it was her turn to lead the
students' prayer meeting, she chose "Heaven" for her topic. "Before I came
to your country, I used to think it was heaven," she said; "but now I am so
glad it isn't, for then they might try to keep father out, and now I know
he is inside."

She completed her course at Folts Institute in 1902, and as she seemed in
good health, entered Central Wesleyan College for further training. But her
zeal for her work always led her to overestimate her own strength, and her
patience in suffering and desire not to cause any one any trouble, made it
hard for others to know the true state of her health. One of her teachers
at Folts says that Anna would often be ill for days before any one would
have any knowledge of it, so uncomplaining was she. This teacher tells how
at one time, when Anna finally had to give up, the tears rolled down the
cheeks of the girl who bore pain so bravely that it was unsuspected even by
those who were watching her carefully, at the thought that the friend to
whom she gave both the century-old reverence of the Chinese for a teacher
and the warm love of her grateful heart, should have to minister to her
needs. It was found, after she had been at the Central Wesleyan College for
a few months, that courageous as she was, her strength was not sufficient
to enable her to go on with her studies.

She spent the rest of the year in Minneapolis in the home of her good
friends, Bishop and Mrs. Joyce. She was never content to be idle, and after
a few months of rest she gave several addresses in the churches of
Minnesota and North Dakota, awakening interest in the cause she represented
wherever she went. She so won the hearts of the young people that when she
went back to China it was as the representative of the young women who
formed the Standard Bearer Society of the Minneapolis branch of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society.

In the summer of 1903 a specialist pronounced her to be suffering from
tuberculosis, and the next winter was spent in southern California