Born: February 1, 1846, Dover, Kent, England. Her birth was registered as Louisa Maria Rouse, but she was often known as Louise.
Died: January 18, 1917, Penkridge, Rhodesia (now Cashel), Zimbabwe.
Buried: Penkridge, Rhodesia.
Louise grew up in England, in Kent and Sussex, and was a governess to a family in Lyminge, Kent, before emigrating to America around 1871.
In September 1873, she married George Stead, of Hempstead, Long Island, at St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved to Hempstead.
Only a few years later, George died off Hempstead Bay, Long Island:
George Stead, a painter, of Hempstead, was yesterday painting a boat at the bay, having with him his little boy. The boy accidentally got into the water, and the father, fearing he would be drowned, went in after him, and getting beyond his depth was himself drowned, while the boy was saved.
The Brooklyn Union, Wednesday, May 31, 1876, p. 2
As a teenager, Stead had felt called to be a missionary. Attending a camp meeting in Urbana, Ohio, she felt the missionary calling even more strongly, but was unable to go to China as she wanted due to her frail health.
Around 1880, she went to South Africa, and served as a missionary. She remarried, to Robert Wodehouse, at Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) in January 1882.
She returned to America in 1895 to recover her health, but once again went into missions in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1901.
After retiring in 1911, the Wodehouses lived near Mutambara mission station, Zimbabwe, 50 miles south of Umtali (now Mutare).
Her daughter Lily (who survived the accident that killed her father) married D. A. Carson and became a missionary like her mother.
If you know where to get a better photo of Stead,