I read a great many of this writer's works during that period nearly four decades ago and now have forgotten the correlation of stories to titles - and moving more than three dozen times in your life is likely to suffer you loss of much, especially possessions, especially books. So there are no ready references.
But if memory serves right this is the story of the writer's mother, who married a man she admired and loved - and he was a missionary whose vision was to go forth in the world. So she went forth with him, to distant China, which was far more distant those days of travel by ship.
One of the memories of this book is about how she was always with hands in earth for gardening or in another work - always busy - and how she often said her dream was to have beautiful manicured clean hands, smooth and soft, without rough skin and callouses.
She died before that could happen.