Born in Seoul in 1894, Yi Ae-ra graduated from Ewha Hakdang and worked as a teacher before devoting herself to her husband's independence activities. During the March First Movement she led the Patriotic Women's Society in the demonstrations and later headed a fund-raising campaign for the resistance, for which she was arrested and tortured. In the course of this persecution, Japanese gendarmes threw her 100-day-old baby to the ground, killing the infant; she later fled with her husband to Vladivostok, but died on September 4, 1922 from the lingering effects of torture. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation (Independence Medal) in 1962.