Elizabeth Foreman Lewis was born on May 24, 1892, in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended public schools there, and after graduation from high school studied art at the Maryland Institute in Baltimore. She continued her studies, particularly in religion and English literature, in New York City. In 1917 she was sent to China by the Methodist Women's Board. She served as mission treasurer in Shanghai, as supervisor of Chungking District Schools, and as a teacher at both the Huei Wen School for Girls and the Boys' Academy in Nanking. She was married in Nanking in 1921 to John Abraham Lewis, the son of a Methodist bishop.

Lewis continued her work in China for a number of years, until illness forced her to return home to Maryland. For the better part of three decades, she devoted all of her available time and energy to speaking and writing about China, the...