AVLINA IRENE
ROBINSON (1875-1963)
A MISSIONARY IN BURMA AND INDIA
LETTERS HOME
Alvina Robinson was the daughter of Moody Robinson (Jr) and Ellen Arminda Aten, and she was the sister of my grandmother Gertrude
(Robinson) Coffey. She taught school in Iowa for a while, and then completed
her degree at Simpson College in Iowa. She was then a missionary in Burma and
India from about 1907 to 1920.
Here is a picture of Alvina, as a young woman. (Age in picture unknown. She went
to Burma at age 32.)
She wrote many letters,
mostly to her parents (Moody and Ellen Robinson), and to her sisters. Many were
saved, and ended up in the possession of her niece Dorothy (Coffey) Smith. With
Dorothy's help, we selected and copied many of them in December 2004.
You can read a selection from
her letters if you click on the following. (From there, click on any blue page
number and that letter page should pop up on your screen. Also, the letters I
consider more interesting are highlighted in yellow.)
After returning from Burma in
about 1920, she moved to Fullerton, California (where her parents had
previously moved). A couple of her
nieces (Opal and Mildred Coffey) came to visit, and then the three of them
drove back to Iowa. You can follow their Òtrip reportÓ by clicking on the
following links in sequence. The trip scribe is Mildred, who is believed to
have flunked spelling in 5th grade:
