Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Normal Ryder)

Peace Pilgrim Digital restoration by Robert Benner / (CC BY-NC 2.0) via Flickr

My hero is Peace Pilgrim. She took on the name Peace Pilgrim in her young years and it was her legal name. She took that name because she walked a pilgrimage for peace. Her birth name before she became Peace Pilgrim was Mildred Norman. Peace Pilgrim never owned a house or a car and walked for peace. That is why she is my hero. She believed that world peace would come when enough people had inner peace.

Peace was born in 1908 on a small chicken farm on the outskirts of Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. She said that she was thankful for that because she had a creek to swim in and had room to grow. Peace Pilgrim said that she was very happy in her childhood.

The reason she went on her pilgrimage is because she wanted peace. Peace Pilgrim wanted her pilgrimage to represent all peace, like peace among nations, groups, individuals, and the very important inner peace because that is where peace begins. She is very important to me because she walked really far, 25,000 miles for peace. Plus she was homeless, in a way in which she didn’t want a home. There are many quotes of hers that have a really good point. Mildred or Peace began her pilgrimage at the head of the 1953 Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Pilgrim never owned a house or a car for herself. Peace Pilgrim stated that a pilgrimage is a wander with purpose. She would walk for many miles at a shot and would house with complete strangers that would take her in for a while because they cared. She wore her short tunic with "PEACE PILGRIM" on the front and "25,000 Miles On Foot for Peace" on the back."

Starting in January 1, 1953 (in the Rose Parade), Peace Pilgrim walked for 28 years - across the United States seven times. She visited all fifty states, ten provinces in Canada and parts of Mexico before she died on July 7, 1981.