“We don’t use social services as a bait to fish for converts” the New York Times recalls her saying. Rather, she rekindled the Salvation Army’s original goal of evangelism.

Dr Billy Graham, with whom General Burrows had a warm association, said of her: “General Eva Burrows is unquestionably one of the most respected and influential Christian leaders of our time. She is also an individual of great warmth, selfless compassion, unusual vision, and profound spiritual commitment. She embodies the spiritual commitment and dedication that led to the founding of The Salvation Army by William and Catherine Booth over 100 years ago.”

“She served on the board of International Bible Society [known now as Biblica, sponsors of the NIV translation], says Greg Clarke CEO of Bible Society Australia. “But no doubt she would say her service to the poor around the world was the higher honour.”

General Burrows’ memorial service is today, March 31.

Evangeline Evelyn Burrows was born in Tighes Hill, Newcastle, NSW. Her parents Robert and Ella – both Salvo majors – named her after Evangeline Booth, daughter of the Salvo’s founder, who became the Army’s first female General when Evangeline was five.

As she became a teenager, she rebelled against the Salvation Army uniform she had worn with pride as a child. Forbidden to go to dances or the movies she said, “I just felt I couldn’t be bothered going to the Salvation Army, because it was too strict.”

Religion “just dropped off me like a cloak, just left me.”

She came back to God at Queensland University. “I think God, like my mother, was very patient. He waited for me to learn some lessons and learn the meaning of spiritual values. I went to Brisbane University – Queensland University – and in my first few weeks we had an orientation course. And I went to all the clubs to see what was going on in all the different societies. And then a fellow, a Salvation Army chap whom I didn’t really know well, he said, you know, ‘Do you want to come to the Christian Union?’ So I went to the Christian Union and found all these very nice young people, all switched on, you know, to the Christian faith. And I think before that I’d probably felt that Christianity was more to do with the older people and strict rules. And here were these young university students following the Bible, studying the Bible, enjoying talking about the Bible. So I went a few times and suddenly it all began to click. And I felt, ‘Here’s something that I haven’t really thought seriously about.’ So I began to attend their services. And I also went to a vacation Bible Camp that they were holding. I think it was a young Anglican clergyman there, and he was talking about the letter to the Romans which Paul had written, which shows us how we can turn around our whole life. He was a young man — Marcus Loane his name was — and later he became the Anglican Archbishop [of Sydney] and Primate of all Australia. But in those few days in that week he had tremendous impact on my life.”

In 1951 The Salvation Army (an organization which gives orders) sent Burrows to Zimbabwe as a teacher and she taught through the years that the old white government Rhodesia declared independence, and the fight for African rule began. After 17 years in Africa. Burrows was selected to teach at the Salvation Army officer college in London.

Back in Britain, Burrows moved into social services for the salvos “and discovered the first world problem of loneliness: Matron was telling me something about the women and what a sad sort of lonely lot they were. And then I saw on one of the lockers this Christmas card which I – I suppose curiosity – I bent down and was reading it. And it said, ‘Christmas Greetings from loved ones across the sea.’ So I said, ‘Oh well, at least this lady’s got someone who loves her.’ And Matron said, ‘Oh no, no. She would have sent that card to herself. And that was quite a moment for me. I hadn’t ever realised that people could be that lonely. So then, you know, I had a whole paradigm shift, as they call it these days, looking at these women, and trying to see what we could do to bring some joy and happiness and meaning into their life.”

She returned to Australia as commander of the Southern Territories (Victoria, SA, Tasmania, WA), and was based in Melbourne.

Asked to name her main achievements back in Australia she told her Australian Biography interviewer “One is the encouragement to the Salvation Army to be a church and to be known as a church. That’s what I call the Church Growth Department and the movement we made. And the realisation that Australian Salvationists should reach out to people in their community, not just with the helping hand and food and clothing, but to reach out with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the introduction of friends’ and neighbours’ services, where Salvationists who perhaps have never brought a neighbour to the church before, were encouraged to bring them on these occasions, when we would have a service which was more geared to people who’d never been to church before. And to see a growth in the membership of the Salvation Army as a church. And to try and help people generally to know that the Salvation Army is a church, a denomination, as well as a charity.”

Appointed general of the whole army, Burrows had to sort out structural issues. She engaged a management consultancy “So that the first day the Coopers & Lybrand people came to give their first presentation I really was very anxious. I was anxious because I wondered if they would catch the true meaning of the Salvation Army, what our true purpose was, which was not just to be a charity. So we’re sitting there in the Advisory Council room and the screen went up, and the first transparency came up on the screen: ‘Purpose of the Salvation Army – to lead men and women to Jesus Christ through the following means.’ And I just said thank you Lord, very much, you know, they’ve got, they’ve got it”.

Interviewed in 2009 by Barry Gittins and Faye Michelson she said “I was asked this by [biographer] Colonel Henry Gariepy. Out of the blue he said, ‘What do you want on your tombstone?’

Quickly, before I even had to think, I said, ‘She pleased God’. That’s one very important thing to me; that my life has been pleasing to the God I serve.”

Image: Salvation Army