MY FIRST WORD

A century-old journal; a young woman caught in global upheaval; a life striving to serve God as a missionary. All feature in this illuminating book, which expands on the writings of the author’s maternal grandmother as she navigates the histories many of us have only read about.


Born in Tabriz, Persia, Mary Agnes Wilson was the daughter of missionaries.

After being sent to college in America, young Agnes graduates and begins a career as a teacher with one mission in mind: to return to her home in Persia. With the horrors of the First World War, the impact of the Spanish flu, civil rights movements for women’s suffrage, and more going on all around her in the turbulent decade between 1909 and 1920, as well as the introduction of men into Agnes’s life, this mission proves to be anything but simple.


Written by Agnes’s granddaughter, this beautiful “fictionalized memoir” stands upon Agnes’s original journals to deliver a story in which the dialogue is dramatized, but the events, people, and history are all very real. My First Word invites you to share in this family saga, and join in the transgenerational telling of this tale of holding onto your dreams when you and the world around you are changing.