PART SIX
SHANGHAI

42
A Time of Reckoning
(1923-24)

It was the last day of October when I started north. I traveled by the Blue Express, the same train that had been held up that spring by bandits, who took off a large number of passengers. All these trains had military guards. Later I heard a woman who had been on the same train with me explaining to friends how there had been special guards when she went north. I stopped off in Shantung and went up Tai Shan, one of China's sacred mountains. My only companions were the excellent Mohammedan chair bearers who make this trip their specialty, but I was very happy and enjoyed the day immensely.

I had looked forward for many years to visiting Peking. I stayed in the hospitable home of the Robert Galleys of the Y, and spent most of my time in sightseeing. I did things in a leisurely way, and had a private ricksha to take me about. But in spite of these precautions, one day I was ill; I kept feeling faint and my heart was bothersome. We called a doctor and he said, "heart over-strain." I must rest. Then our old friend, Dr. Morse of Chengtu, arrived in Peking for his own medical problem. He thought I should have a thorough examination and made an appointment for me with the heart specialist at the Rockefeller hospital, usually known as the P.U.M.C.^[1]

During the examination I was told that I must enter the hospital at once. A dinner was being given for me that evening by an old Chinese friend of Nanking days, and I could not well be absent. The doctor finally agreed, if I would stay only a short time at the dinner and enter the hospital early the next morning. I followed his instructions, and the next morning saw me ensconced in a hospital room. Here I spent a month.

[1] Our family has many reasons to be grateful to the Peking Union Medical College (P.U.M.C.). Grace was there in 1923, Dick was treated for tuberculosis in 1936, our son Bob was born there in 1937, and my wife, Caroline, has been helped with bronchitis (the modern Peking complaint) as recently as 1984. Of course, it is now the Capital Hospital, but the taxi driver still uses the old abbreviated Chinese name, xiehe .

As soon as I "let go" in the hospital, I was like a wreck and, contrary to my usual nature, shed quarts of tears. The Austrian doctor in charge of that section of the hospital used to sit by my bed and stroke my hand, asking me where I suffered. I could not lie down, and lay there propped on a mound of pillows while the tears ran down my cheeks. Friends were thoughtful, and I had constant messages and gifts.^[2] Legation friends supplied me with books, but life seemed hardly worth living. I had written Bob that I was going in "for a rest"; only Shanghai and Peking friends knew I was ill—and even I, myself, did not know how sick I was.

As soon as I could have visitors, I was much diverted by a Chinese of the Salt Gabelle, whom I had known as a young man in Chengtu where I used to teach him English.^[3] He told the nurses he was my pupil and faithfully came to the hospital every day to see me. The nurses all became very friendly when they found I could speak Mandarin, even though it was the Szechwan brand. My friend was also visiting in the north and told me much of interest concerning his doings, the places he visited, and the things he was buying for gifts to those at home. In the Chinese way, gift selection was an important part of his journey; he even brought some of these presents to show me.

Doctors are often wary about telling patients of their ailments. They gave me no name for my illness; it was only later that I learned it. I had written Mabelle Yard and a few other friends in Shanghai that I was miserable, but Bob knew little of the truth. The heart specialist insisted on rest. I took little medicine, was not allowed to walk, had plenty of heart tests, and had X-rays of teeth and such things. Finally my kind Austrian doctor told me I would not be able to go to America by way of Europe. This upset me a good deal. I had assumed that after the hospital interlude I would be getting up and going about as usual. To relinquish such long-cherished and somewhat hard-earned plans seemed very hard to face, alone as I was in Peking.^[4] I had to write to the shipping office to cancel the reservations, and also to Bob in Chungking.

I already knew what Bob's reaction would be: if we could not start for America as planned, he would choose to stay on in Chungking and help the new man get used to the work at the Y. But I still expected that we would soon be going to America by way of the Pacific.

[2] Grace, as would be expected, kept up her diary without a break. One of the visitors she noted was John Hersey's mother (also named Grace). Mr. Hersey's The Call (New York: Knopf, 1985) describes YMCA life in a different part of China—the north. The principal legation friends were UC classmate Julean Arnold and his wife (see chapter 3).

[3] Salt Gabelle was the usual foreign way of referring to the government's Salt Administration. All through Chinese history, a tax on salt has been an important revenue of the state. In 1913 the credit rating of the new republic was not high. In order to secure a large foreign loan, China had to agree to place the collection of this tax under foreign administration. "Gabelle" was a tax levied on salt in France before the French Revolution.

[4] Grace never was able to realize her dream of visiting Europe.

Although the doctors wanted me to stay longer in Peking, I was determined to be with the lads in Shanghai for Christmas. I was allowed to travel with a YW secretary who was going south, and had to promise that I would put myself in the hands of a physician as soon as I reached Shanghai. I did call a doctor the day after my arrival. He told me at once that I would have to spend eighteen hours a day in bed for the next six months.^[5] This was blow upon blow. If it had not been for the Yards, I do not know what I would have done. The lads and I were there for Christmas together.

When our Y friends in Shanghai heard the word "endocarditis" and saw how ill I had been, they began to tell me that Bob would be down very soon. They entirely failed to understand our attitude. I prided myself on never interfering with any appointment or work of my husband. I would never send for him. If there were to be such a call, I expected it to be from the National Committee. The Committee, however, assumed that I would write urging him to come to the Coast. In the meantime, no full report of the seriousness of my condition reached him. I had the Yards' guest room with a private bath, and Dick was in a small study across the hall.

The year 1923 closed on a somewhat somber note. Though not athletic, I had always been very active. I rode and walked, though perhaps not as much as some. I had given up tennis because of my eyes. Now to be laid aside with severe physical restrictions for the future was devastating. I could not accustom myself to it; and I knew how disastrous it would seem to Bob. This was the truly unexpected. I thought of how I had been able to help Bob when his eye was injured, and felt that now I had failed him in my health. I was distressed that I would not be able to do as much for my family as I had done before. I knew I was going through a period of depression, but I tried to win back confidence and hope.

Life for Bob in Chungking had been having some different complications. Yang Sen and his forces started to retreat from Chungking the day after I had left that city. As is common in Chinese sieges, a gate was left uncontested for the retiring army. But Yang Serfs wives, who lived near us and had been so eager to call upon me that autumn, knew they might fare badly in a flight, and they rushed to our house in short order when the rout began. Indeed, inside of half an hour after the capturing troops entered the city, the former home of the Yang ladies had been thoroughly looted. Our faithful Lao Liu, the horse coolie, rushed to the Y to tell Bob.

When Bob reached the house, he found three or four wives with female relatives and servants of both sexes. The party was more than twenty in all. They had no interest in the upper part of the house. Fortunately, our ground

[5] Grace did spend a great deal of time in bed or resting, but her diary [or this period indicates that she found many needs to bend the doctor's eighteen-hour admonition.

floor was almost like a basement. Bob arranged several rooms for them there and also gave them the living room and study on the first floor.^[6]

Bob often laughed about this experience. He had interesting talks with several of the wives' mothers. In 1927 Bob was in Hankow during a very tense period. One day an old Chinese dame in a ricksha waved, called, and made her puller stop. She was one of those mothers. She cried out with pleasure: "This is indeed good fortune to meet Hsieh An-tao. He helped us in Chungking four years ago and will help us again." The women were trying to get to Shanghai. Bob was able to send a Chinese to assist them.

When I learned in December 1923 that we would have to give up the trip through Europe, I was still in the hospital and could not conveniently send a telegram. I asked Mr. Gailey to send one for me. Bob knew I was in the hospital; when the telegram arrived and he saw the word Peking, he was afraid to open it. He took it home with him and kept it several hours before tearing it open. The change in travel plans was not the bad news he had feared! He then sat down and wrote me a beautiful letter telling me of his apprehension, and of his relief. He could not visualize me as anything but my old self. His letter took several weeks to reach me but was a great comfort.

Bob's replacement finally arrived in late January. Bob left at once and joined me in Shanghai in early February. I think he was surprised that I had been so ill, Actually, I have to thank him for sending me away from Chungking when he did. Had I remained, I might not be alive now.

Now that we were together, the next problem was our furlough. Because travel would be difficult for me, and I would not be able to keep house when we arrived in America, we decided to remain in Shanghai until the end of the boys' school year. The YMCA residences in Shanghai were impractical for me because the way they were planned required much climbing of steps and stairs. Jim and Mabelle Yard had a large ground-floor apartment. We were glad to accept their invitation to stay on with them.

Bob did some local work for the Y that spring and attended the annual YMCA conference in Hangchow. His Tibetan collection, which he had been accumulating for fifteen or more years, attracted attention and comment. He spoke about it at the American Women's Club.^[7] I amused myself during those

[6] I believe that Yang Sen's harem stayed in our house for about two weeks and then left Chungking on a safe-conduct pass. However inconsiderate of human life the warlord generals might be where their peasant soldiers were concerned, they were usually considerate—and even chivalrous—when the lives of their rivals and their rivals' families were involved. Perhaps the kaleidoscopic nature of warlord politics reminded them that today's winner might well be tomorrow's loser.

[7] I think this was the origin of a Tibetan collection that Bob loaned to the museum at Shanghai Baptist College. The college was several miles below Shanghai on the Whangpoo River. During the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1937, it was occupied by the Japanese army. Bob's Tibetan collection, and most of the contents of the museum, disappeared. The Japanese

agreed to pay the insured value, but that was lamentably low. Apparently, when Bob placed it there and was asked about its value, he had merely estimated his own cost of procuring the articles in West China. Financial affairs were not Bob's forte.

months in bed by compiling an anthology of Chinese poetry. It necessitated much reading, but I had plenty of time. And it was interesting to have some objective as I read.^[8]

[8] The anthology was of English translations of Chinese poems. And that was the problem. Grace had a good working command of spoken Chinese, but she could not read. The nature of poetry, and the lack of any relationship between Chinese and English, mean that there can be as many different translations of a Chinese poem as there are translators. Which translation was Grace to take as "best"? It was a project that Grace would work on for a time and then put aside. Finally, in the late 1930s after Bob's death, she completed her manuscript. Her friend Pearl Buck suggested that she send it to John Day, the publishing firm that Mrs. Buck's husband was associated with. But their answer was negative. Grace's diary does not indicate that she tried anywhere else.

43
Unsettling Furlough
(1924-25)

We sailed from Shanghai on June 12, on a ship going to Seattle. When Y people returned from the field, the International Committee required them to have a medical check-up. Because of my health problems, we expected this to have special priority. But we assumed that it could wait until we reached California, where we would be staying with Bob's family. Unexpectedly, a telegram from the Committee insisted that we have the medical examinations before we left Seattle. The examinations were thorough and took several days—while we all had to stay in a Seattle hotel. The doctors were not pleased with my history or condition and thought I should not return to the Orient. It seemed hard to convince them that life for a housewife and mother might be easier in China where she could have all the servants that were needed. Still, we were both fairly optimistic and hoped for great improvement after I reached California.

The International Committee had told us that we would be living in Berkeley that year. As soon as we arrived, we started looking for a furnished house to rent, With three growing boys, it was not easy to find a suitable one. At last we advertised. This produced an attractive place on Spruce Street, not far from two of Bob's sisters.^[1] That settled, I went south to spend three weeks with my parents. Bob took the boys to the old Service family ranch near Ceres, and then, with two of his elder brothers and two older cousins, on a fishing and camping trip to Tuolumne Meadows.^[2]

[1] There were eleven siblings in Bob's family; eight reached adulthood, married, and had an average of three children apiece. His two married sisters near us in Berkeley had a total of seven, close in age to us boys. It was a great getting-acquainted of cousins.

[2] Toulumne Meadows was very different in 1924: narrow, unpaved, one-way roads; no specified campgrounds; not many people. My uncles went every year and always camped at the same spot on the bank of the Merced River. One of the uncles had an open touring car called the Apperson Jackrabbit. It was misnamed. First, a short circuit caused a minor fire under the seat. Then we broke an axle. I have been back to the Meadows many times, but that first time was the best.

30
Seeing the family off on the ship at Shanghai in 1924. The four Yard girls
and the three Service boys. The NOW famous Molly is hiding under the
bushel at the right.

We all returned to Berkeley in August and settled into the Spruce Street house in time for the three boys to start school—in three separate public schools. The house was comfortable, with a spacious redwood-panelled living room and fine views of San Francisco Bay. We were also pleased to have a fireplace. But there had been a disastrous fire in Berkeley the year before, and the neighborhood was very nervous. As soon as we lit a blaze in our grate, the phone would ring: "Do you know that sparks are coming out of your chimney?" We had little joy out of that fireplace.^[3]

Bob at once started to learn how to drive. As soon as he had a drivers' license, he bought our first car, a second-hand, 1922 Studebaker with a "California top." This made a touring car into a semi-sedan by adding sliding glass side windows. We enjoyed the car exceedingly, and soon felt the greatest confidence in Bob's driving.^[4]

Bob also started to take some work at the University, but there were so many interruptions that he was unable to complete any course. For one thing, he was asked to give many talks. For instance, on one day he talked to the Lions Club at noon and the University YMCA in the evening.^[5] The next day he addressed the University Meeting, and we had lunch with the acting

[3] There was another disappointment related to the fire hazard. I was astonished, coming from rainy Szechwan, to find that Berkeley has no rain from May to October—and watering the many flowers and shrubs surrounding the house was my assigned responsibility. In China, of course, we had a gardener.

[4] Grace, a non-driver, was being kind. I expect it is not easy to learn to drive at forty-five. But we all loved the car (Walnut Creek was a favorite, almost weekly, "drive in the country").

[5] Bob's name was kept alive on the Berkeley campus because the University YMCA (Stiles Hall) considered him its "representative in China" and staged an annual "Roy Service Day" to raise funds for his partial support.

31
The family in Berkeley, 1924. The picture was memorable to Jack because
he had just persuaded Bob to let him don his first long pants.

president of the University. That same afternoon he talked to a women's meeting at St. Marks Episcopal Church. In the midst of this he had to go east to bring a Chinese friend, the president of the Chungking Y, across the continent. The friend, who spoke no English, had expected to travel via Europe with us. When our European plans were canceled, we arranged for him to travel with some Canadian friends. But they could bring him only as far as Toronto.

When we set up housekeeping, I tried to get on without help. This soon proved impracticable. The doctor told me to stay in bed in the mornings until nine or later, and I was not to do any kind of hard work. After several part-time arrangements did not work out, we got a maid. This pretty well solved the household problem.

In November Bob had to go to Southern California to make some speeches. Mrs. Strite, an old friend of the Service family, agreed to stay with the three lads, so I was able to go with Bob. We were back by Thanksgiving for a wonderful gathering of more than thirty members of the Service clan at Ceres. It was a jollification such as the Services well know how to manage. There were two mammoth turkeys and plenty to go with them. Singing and games ended the day.

Our own Christmas-present opening was in the morning around my bed. For weeks and even months Bob had been encouraging the three boys to hope for an electric train. The lads had each secured catalogues, and there had been hot debates over relative merits. As our gifts were opened on my bed, the parcels disclosed no trace of any train. When the air showed tension and disappointment, Bob remarked that there had been a lot of gifts on the bed, perhaps there was something under it. Immediately there were dives for the floor, followed by shouts and various signs of pleasure. It was the brand they had deemed the best, with extra track and equipment. That night there was a tree at the home of Bob's sister Irene, and our children had their only chance to share the fun of Christmas with cousins.^[6] A few days later we were off to Asilomar, where a YMCA conference was to be held.

When we had rented the Berkeley house, it was with the understanding from the International Committee that we were to be there for the whole school year. At the end of 1924 we had word from the Committee that we were to move to New York early in January. This seemed an impossible feat to me. We were all nicely settled; to uproot the three boys from their school work when all were so well established and happy seemed unreasonable. Also, we feared that the doctors might not permit my return to China. If so, Bob would have to face a job hunt for Y work in America, and that would probably mean more moving. So we felt it best not to move the family at this time. As soon as we returned from Asilomar, Bob started off alone to New York.

After a few weeks, I had word from Bob that I had to go east and should make some arrangement for leaving the boys. Fortunately, Mrs. Strite was able to come again. Then my doctor would not let me travel alone! Finally, Bob came west to get me. On February 27 we left for Chicago, where Bob was to spend about four weeks. This gave me a chance to visit my relatives in Iowa.

Then we were off to New York. Here I found that arrangements had been made for me to enter a sanatorium in New Jersey. This was a place that took only "hearts, Bright's disease, and diabetes." We were pleasantly surprised to find a University of California classmate as head physician and manager.^[7] He very generously arranged a large double room for me so that Bob could stay with me (he was able to commute from there to the Y offices in New York City). I was on a very rigid salt-free diet, with minimum fat and sugar. But the primary objective was tonsilectomy.

Because I had imbedded tonsils, they had not been entirely removed in 1916, and both had become infected. In Peking, Seattle, and later in Califor-

[6] it was Irene's collection of teacups that Grace had accidentally ruined in 1905 (chapter 2).

[7] The doctor was Fred W. Allen, UC 1902.

nia I had been told that they must come out; but no one was anxious to operate. Now, finally, with the most skillful anesthetist, with a clever throat specialist, and with our doctor friend (out of personal interest) in the operating room, I had the operation. I returned to the sanatorium for ten days and, at the end of April, was pronounced fit to return to China—but not to Szechwan. The doctors would not consent to my living where I would need to go to the mountains in the summer. And the Coast was thought to be better for me than the interior.

There had, of course, been consultation between the International Committee in New York and the National Committee in Shanghai. The National Committee had work for Bob on the Coast, and he would also be used for regular trips to the YMCAs on the Yangtze and in Szechwan. Bob felt that this would be in many ways an ideal arrangement. One of the chief problems in Szechwan had been isolation and the lack of two-way contact with the National Committee in remote Shanghai. If he were to be based in Shanghai and travel back and forth, he felt that this would be solved. On the day before we were to leave the sanatorium, he returned from the city full of happiness and thoroughly pleased with what he called a "surprise" for me. It was the news that our passage for China had been booked for August 22 on the President Pierce .

I knew the whole situation had been very difficult for Bob. He felt I had had too strenuous a life in China, and that it might be his duty to remain in America. He had been offered several Y positions in the States, but he always said to me that he had no place in America. He had given his life to China; he belonged to the China work. And, as the International Committee had stood behind us, so we must stand by the Committee. He did not speak of his ability to speak Chinese, or of his many friends there in China. He could not bear to give up in his forties the work to which he had turned his hand and heart when he was in his twenties. I agreed, and was as rejoiced as he to be able to return to the country and the associations so dear to both of us.

Practically all the thrill and excitement of near-normal American existence for me during that year in America was condensed into six marvelous days of May when we stayed at the Hotel Commodore in New York, saw old friends, shopped, went to theaters, entertained our niece Lynda Goodsell from Wellesley,^[8] and stored up numerous memories that are still a source of happiness. We had a visit with relatives in Chattanooga, and two days with my parents in Southern California. In no time, we were back in Berkeley.

In the midst of "last things," Bob had his teeth pulled. We were closely scanning the newspapers those days for accounts of the "Shanghai Incident"

[8] Lynda was the eldest child of Bob's sister Lulu (see chapter 2, note 2). She had grown up in Turkey and would return there as a missionary.

32
Bob and Grace on their furlough
travel to the East Coast, early 1925.
They look as if they knew that their
return to China had been approved.

of May 30, when foreign police in Shanghai had shot into a crowd of students and other sympathizers staging a demonstration in support of strikers in a foreign-owned textile factory.^[9] Jack graduated from Berkeley High School in early June. He was still only fifteen and would return with us to China to work for awhile before going to college.

By mid-June we were with four other Service families camping together in Yosemite Valley. We had rented equipment; the others had their own. There were continual hikes, swims, and other good times. As soon as the men were back from any activity, a table of bridge would be started. If four players could not be found (very seldom), Bob and his elder brother Bert would sit down to cribbage, at which they were persistent foes.^[10]

[9] The May Thirtieth Incident in Shanghai was seized upon by the Kuomintang and Communism, then in a united front, to galvanize the country against foreign imperialism. It was a milestone toward the Kuomintang's victory in 1927. For a time, the situation in Shanghai looked very uncertain, and Grace and Bob were scanning the news in the fear that their return might be affected. It will be recalled that their arrival in 1905 was also during a period of disturbance.

[10] Bob and all his family loved almost all games, and especially cards. This posed a problem for Bob in China. Missionaries were opposed to gambling. Chinese assumed that anyone playing with ordinary cards was gambling. So most missionaries avoided games with conventional cards. Our family went through a long, gradual transition. First, games with special cards: for instance, Old Maid and Rook; then Five Hundred; and finally bridge (auction and then con-

tract). After we went back to China in 1925, bridge was the order of the day. Grace was a good sport about all this. She lacked the Service zest for competition. She avoided "ladies' bridge." But she was willing to please Bob and her sons.

I rode on some of the excursions and picnics, but soon began to feel badly. It did not seem to be my heart. Bert's wife and I had gone into the Valley by train to avoid the elevation of the old road by Big Oak Flat (in 1925 there was no river-level motor road through E1 Portal). Finally, a day before we had planned to break camp, I had to leave. After I had spent a day in bed at Ceres, Bob arrived with our car and the boys and took me on to Berkeley. They drove me immediately to the hospital. I had an infected gallbladder, and a boil on a leg, and felt sicker and crosser than I can remember having felt before or since. For awhile I could eat nothing, and odors nauseated me. When they finally told me I would have to eat, the only thing I could think of that might be palatable was Chinese tea, which was not much of a food. Bob got some from a Chinese vegetable dealer. Gradually I added a dry cracker, a bit of toast, a taste of this or that—until eventually I was pronounced fit to leave the hospital.

All this time Bob was greatly worried. It was already July, and we were to sail for China in August. I wanted no guests at the hospital as I was actually too cross to talk—when that happens a woman does feel ill. But of course Bob came, usually twice a day; and always he asked whether the doctor had said anything about our return to China. I was thankful I did not have to report anything. The doctor knew our plans, and he never spoke of them at all. Neither did we.

Bob and the boys had moved into an apartment on Ashby Avenue, and our maid from the Spruce Street house came back to help out. As soon as I could travel, I went south by train (the doctor would not let me go by car). Bob and the boys joined me at Long Beach, where we took an apartment for a couple of weeks and visited with my parents. By August 10 we were back in Berkeley and busy with all the bustle of packing and last errands.

There was a great send-off by friends and relatives when we boarded ship on August 22 and started back to China.

44
Settling in Shanghai
(1925-26)

We had a pleasant voyage across the Pacific. There were various parties and the usual athletic contests.^[1] Bob got out some of his Chinese hangings for the "Arabian Nights" entertainment and, dressed as a Chinese gentleman, took the prize [or "most handsome man." In Honolulu we hired a car and had a wonderful day. With swims both at Haleiwa and Waikiki, the boys were very happy. Our only regret that evening was that we so soon had to throw our leis in the bay.

By mid-September we were among friends in Shanghai. Bob left in early October for his first trip to west China on his new regional assignment. After he left we moved into a rented house at the end of Avenue Joffre.^[2] With the younger boys at school and Bob away, Jack was my mainstay for the move. He did well until he developed a sinus infection and had to go to the hospital. When he was well again, he started working as an apprentice draughts-man at the architectural office of the YMCA. Several residences and Y buildings were being built around the country, and plans were being drawn for a new Foreign YMCA in Shanghai. Bob got home on December 24, just in time for the holidays. So ended 1925.

The new year started out to be a busy one. Bob was away in the West for three months in the spring and early summer. And I began to become active in a new way. I felt set free in Shanghai. After the long years when I had taught in the YMCA and at home, I was now entirely without that employ-

[1] My chief interest was in the table tennis tournament, which was won by Edwin O. Reischauer, later my Oberlin classmate and American ambassador to Japan. I was runner-up.

[2] The house we rented was in the same compound where Grace had been staying with the Yards in the spring of 1924. The Yards, however, had left China only a couple of months before we arrived back in Shanghai. Jim sympathized with the Chinese desire for more significant participation in the policy and administration of the Christian church in China. The mission considered him too radical and he was not returned to China. Mabelle continued to be Grace's boon companion—through a copious correspondence.

ment. In America I had seen many of my friends doing much in club activities; but I had never had a chance to do such things myself. Some years previously, I had become a member of the China National Committee of the YWCA. But living where I did, I had no opportunity to attend meetings or take any active part in its work. Now, in Shanghai, I became active on the Committee. I also joined several other organizations, among them the American Women's Club and the Association of American University Women.

Late in 1926 I became the chairman of the "Foreign Finance Committee" of the YWCA. This had charge of the allowances, living arrangements, and financial emergencies concerning the foreign secretaries loaned by various foreign YW organizations to the China National Committee. I continued as chairman for some years until the need for the committee's services were ended by a change in allowances and the decision to dispose of the YWCA residences.

When my mother heard that I had taken on this work, she was rejoiced and wrote that she was so glad that I was doing some missionary work at last! Nothing that I had done in Szechwan—keeping house amid difficulties, teaching, looking after children, entertaining many Chinese and foreign guests, doing everything possible to assist my husband's work—none of this seemed to her to come under the heading of "missionary work." I think she was probably embarrassed and bothered in her mind as to my worth or accomplishments. Certainly, she did not consider that work done by a non-denominational organization, such as the YMCA, had the true stamp of the missionary. As far as I can judge from what she said to me at different times, I remained an enigma to her as long as she lived. That I was satisfied without definite contact with a "Mission Board" was something she could not understand.

When we were in Szechwan, I once asked her to help educate a small lad (the son of our gateman), and she replied, "What good would it do? You are not connected with the work of the Church Board." She was an ardent Presbyterian, but in Szechwan that denomination had no missionary work; obviously, therefore, our work there was beyond the pale. She never helped financially in any way with the myriad benevolences crying at our door; to her, money for missions should go through the Presbyterian Board. No matter what causes I might espouse, nothing could move her from the rock of her sectarianism. I often wonder what my attitude would be if I had a daughter living in and trying to be helpful in a country like China. But I could never have the attitude of Mother's generation; I have seen too much in too many places, and I do not bow down in special reverence to any denomination. I want to be a Christian, and that suffices me.

We spent that summer in Tsingtao, on the Shantung coast. Bob was with us for his vacation, and Jack joined us for a short stay before going to sightsee

in Peking. We were out at Iltis Huk, some three miles beyond the city, and loved the quiet around the bungalows and the beautiful beaches. Bob took a trip to Chefoo with a Shanghai friend. There was still no real motor road connecting the two cities; this was the first time the trip had been done by car. I led a very quiet existence and was glad to rest after Shanghai's rapid pace.

My chief excitement was a weekly jaunt to the excellent market in the city. On one occasion I took a carriage, and in 1926 that meant an old vehicle of the victoria type. In color it was bright canary with a rusty black top. The driver was a man of ancient mien, clothed in flapping blue and black garments and wearing a tall, peaked straw hat. Under his feet he had a large sack of fodder for the two steeds; he could pick up a snack here or there, but they could not. After my visit to the market we added to the boot two live fowls of a somewhat disputative disposition, and two very large market baskets full to the brim with garden truck and fruit. Out of one of these stuck a tall beer bottle full of molasses, for thus did we buy that comestible. In our part of the vehicle we had groceries and a fish, a roast of beef, a roll of flypaper, and miscellaneous articles. Dick reported that a lot of people stared at us, but that did not worry me at all. We always enjoyed these market excursions but left other buying for the cook.

The autumn in Shanghai was occupied with a succession of house guests and the usual full program of city life. We became acquainted with more Chinese and several Japanese. I had Portuguese and German friends. Every acquaintance broadened one's horizons. And there were always unexpected happenings to swell the daily program and add tension to life.

One thing happened to me that autumn that I can never forget. A certain wealthy New York gentleman and his wife had been in Shanghai, staying at a hotel. We had met them several times. The annual YWCA funds campaign was in progress, and I was much concerned for its success. I knew this couple were interested in such activities, so I asked them for a subscription. I was surprised at the amount they gave. Indeed, they expressed themselves as delighted to help us and immediately invited us to dine with them the next day!

The mere idea of asking for money frightens some women. But all those organizations working to help people in need, and without finances of their own, depend on some one to raise money. I would never prefer such a task, but I have never shirked a part in the effort. I have collected funds for Red Cross campaigns, for churches, and for Christian Associations. But never did I meet such a warm reception, when a simple request for a worthy cause brought a generous check, a delightful dinner, and a most enjoyable evening.

There was a sad note late in the year: Jack, now seventeen, was preparing to go back to America for college. We planned for him to go by way of India

and Europe. He was to travel through Europe with the Heldes.^[3] But as they did not want as long a stay in India, Jack was to go ahead of them on an earlier boat and they would catch up with him at Colombo. On December 6 we saw Jack off on a German ship. Half an hour later, Bob left on an unexpected trip to Hong Kong with Dr. David Yui, the head of the YMCA National Committee. Later that same day a cable from the International Committee in New York instructed the Heldes to return to America immediately via the Pacific. And Jack was already happily on his way.

Bob's ship was a fast one; he would be in Hong Kong before Jack. I cabled them both: they could discuss the matter and work out a solution. Bob cabled back: could I find any other couple or party to which Jack could attach himself? Several days of inquiries were unsuccessful. On the fifth day there was another cable from Bob. He had seen Jack off for Manila; the decision whether he should go on or come back to Shanghai was left to me: Jack would do whatever I said. There were dinner guests that evening, and I felt easier in my mind than I had for some days. Possibilities and probabilities chased around and around in my head all night. I remembered myself at seventeen, and knew Jack would be terribly disappointed if he had to return to Shanghai. It would be almost as if I told everyone that I did not trust him to travel alone. He had already started off to go alone through the Malay States and India. If he could do those alone, why not Europe? The next morning I cabled Manila, telling him to go on. As it happened, he managed exceedingly well. YMCA people in India helped. In Italy, he met by chance two University of California classmates of Bob's and mine.^[4] Letters to friends from West China who had returned to England smoothed his way around Britain. I felt justified in my reliance on his judgment^[5]

All during 1926 there had been much tension in China. The North and the South were at odds. Within a year of Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, the Southern government had come under the control of the Left Wing, which was allied with the Russians and advised by Borodin.^[6] Chiang Kai-shek,

[3] It will be recalled that George Helde's wife had died in childbirth at White Deer Summit in 1920 (chapter 33). He had now remarried, and his young son was with them.

[4] The classmates were Mary Irene Morrin and Katherine F. Smith, both UC 1902. They took me in tow through Italy. In Ravello we found ourselves staying in the same small hotel with Monroe E. Deutsch, vice-president and provost of the University of California—and also a 1902 classmate of Grace and Bob's.

[5] Grace's diary entry about this telegram to me has the brief phrase "Hugo helped me." So perhaps Mr. Sandor deserves at least part of my thanks for a fine trip. Perhaps, also, Grace— long thwarted in her own hopes to visit Europe—had some vicarious pleasure in giving me the go-ahead. Grace's diary is a succinct listing of each day's events, weather, letters received and written, books read, meetings attended, who won the evening card game, and so forth. But it is clear, from this instance and others, that in Bob's absences it was to Hugo Sandor that Grace turned for help and advice.

[6] Michael Borodin had spent many years in the United States, as had Sun Yat-sen. This made it possible for the two men to dispense with interpreters and to use English in planning China's revolution. While Borodin was orchestrating the campaign against missionary imperi-

alism, his wife and two Chicago-raised sons were living with an American missionary family in Shanghai while the boys attended the mission-dominated Shanghai American School. They were, of course, using a name other than Borodin.

though not entirely under Russian control, was leading the Northern Expedition against Peking. There was continual unrest and fighting throughout the Yangtze Valley. The fall of 1926 saw many foreigners concentrating in Shanghai. Consular officials, alarmed by unrest, antiforeign strikes, rioting, and fighting here and there, would not permit travel to the interior. Many missionaries were being urged to take early home leave; people returning from home leave were being held at the Coast, hoping for a time of less uncertainty. Our house was full of guests all that winter.

Early in 1927 the Left Wing set up a National Government at Wuhan (the three cities of Hankow, Wuchang, and Hanyang), and Chinese took over the British Concessions in Hankow and Kiukiang. Many foreigners were told to leave the interior. Their arrival added to the large numbers already in Shanghai. Many people from Szechwan were among them, and we did all we could to help. A British bank turned over a large old-fashioned residence for use as a hostel. It gave shelter to a number of our Canadian friends, but they needed furniture and other necessities. I took over a lot of curtains.

About the middle of February a British steamer arrived from Hankow with one hundred and fifty refugees from the West. The whole ship had been taken over for this purpose, including the space below decks that was normally occupied by Chinese coolie-class travelers. We were in the big crowd meeting the boat because we expected two girls [women] from the American Methodists. We found them at last in the bowels of the ship, where they had certainly traveled "hard."

After they reached our house, the first thing they mentioned was a bath. "Oh, yes," I said, showing them their bathroom across the hall. "This is for your use and no one will be sharing it with you. Here are towels and everything, so make yourselves at home." A little later I saw them floating about the hall and one murmured, "We were thinking of taking baths." "Certainly," I agreed, "I hope you have everything." She looked uncertain. I went on about my own affairs, and still later they again mentioned bathing. So I said, "Well, why doesn't one of you start in on a bath?" "But the hot water?" said one of them. I looked puzzled. "There is plenty," said I, "just turn on the tap." They shrieked and began to laugh. "We haven't seen a real American bathroom for such ages. . . . You know how in Szechwan we always have to get the coolie to carry in hot water. . . . Oh, Mrs. Service, what do you think of us!"

The Southern forces came into the Shanghai area in March. They took over most of the Chinese-controlled areas around the foreign settlements without incident. North of the city some Northern troops made an attempt

to fight and then tried to flee, with their arms, into the International Settlement. They were kept out by the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and other available units, but this involved considerable shooting. With the inflamed anti-foreign sentiment of the time, Southern agitators tried to distort this defensive action. The situation was very tense for about thirty-six hours. There was talk of a general strike by the servants of foreigners, but nothing came of it. Indeed, our servants appeared to be exceedingly happy to be right with us in a foreign house. The Boy lugged in some boxes belonging to his father, as he believed our house to be a place of safety.

One day I was in the city, walking along Nanking Road a few blocks from the Bund. Usually the street is crowded with vehicles and pedestrians. Suddenly I noticed that the street was empty. At the same moment a lady spoke from the recess of a shop entrance and asked where I was going. "Why, I'm on my way to the silk shop," I said. "You had better wait awhile," was her response. "A bomb was just thrown from the roof of a building in the next block." It was surprising how quickly I found myself inside that shop with a crowd of other passers-by.

Bob's idea was that if there was any trouble, I would be found close by. He said he always missed such things, but I reminded him of the bullet affair in Chungking. Each one usually has a share of danger, known or unknown.

45
Tense Times
(1927)

The interplay of politics, ambition, and envy, together with a desire to see the discredit of the new Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek—all these elements fused to produce the Nanking Incident of March 24, 1927, in which several foreigners were killed by Southern troops.^[1] Two days later I was at a meeting of the YWCA National Committee. I shall never forget the dismay and concern shown by its Chinese members. We were all faced with most alarming news as to the temper and actions of the soldiery there in Nanking. The Chinese were anxious to know the foreign attitude to the new National Government and wondered if we would be leaving China.^[2] Our discussion settled nothing, but it showed us the sadness of our Chinese friends over the situation.

The Nanking Incident set off alarms around the world, but especially in Shanghai. If this attack on foreigners by Chinese troops was a forerunner of things to come, the situation could be very grave. The concern of our Chinese friends that we might be leaving China did not, at the time, seem so far-fetched.

In Shanghai the foreign military forces enforced a strict curfew.^[3] Barbed-wire barricades were set up at key points. There were constant military patrols throughout the International Settlement and the French Concession. The city was divided into sectors. The national group in each area had in-

[1] Not much is known for certain about the background and motivation of the "Nanking Incident." Grace was accepting the later Kuomintang explanation—that the attack was Communist-inspired, intended to provoke trouble with the foreign Powers and embarrass Chiang Kai-shek.

[2] The "new National Government" was not the Left Wing "National Government" already in business in Wuhan, but the Right Wing "National Government" just then being established in Nanking by Chiang Kai-shek. The Wuhan government collapsed a few months later.

[3] Besides the naval forces normally in the area, all the principal Powers had sent military units to defend Shanghai. The American unit was the Fourth Marine Regiment. There was also the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, a sort of home guard organized by nationality. Finally, there was a very sizable police force. In the International Settlement the police had British officers and a large contingent of Sikhs.

structions for emergencies. Bob was responsible for notifying a list of Americans in our neighborhood. We kept a couple of small trunks packed, and suitcases stood ready in the upper hall. Many organizations, including the American Women's Club, opened relief headquarters. The American Community Church housed fifty people, members of the Augustana Synod Mission. These people were mostly of Scandinavian stock from Nebraska; they had been living in Honan and had suffered much hardship and loss. The gymnasium of the Navy YMCA became a women's dormitory with rows of cots; men had rooms on the upper floors; and the restaurant did a tremendous business.

Early in April I was in the North Hongkew section to pick up my supply of matzoth, the Jewish unleavened bread (I lived on a salt-free diet from 1925 to 1929 and ate no regular bread). While I was there a big sign was erected at the street corner by the Jewish shop I was in: "No traffic permitted north of this point." In the YWCA we were thankful that our Foreign Finance Committee had not renewed leases on houses occupied by our people on North Szechwan Road Extended. All but one or two of our secretaries had already moved south of Range Road.^[4]

Bob and I were having tea one day at the Astor House Hotel. There was a sudden excitement at the Soviet consulate building, just across the street, as members of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps surrounded the building. This was a few days after the Chinese Government had raided the Soviet embassy in Peking. We heard that the Red officials burned masses of papers before clearing out. It was said that a thousand foreigners left Shanghai in one week, and all that spring outgoing ships were crowded. The tension seemed greater during the second week of April than during the first. After that, things gradually became less tense.

A friend with an invalid husband decided to take him to America. She offered us her large and attractive house. The move would save rent for the YMCA, and it was a better house for hot weather than the one we had been living in. We accepted the offer. Several days before we planned to move, the National Committee received a telegram from the Hankow Y asking specifically for Bob to go there. We did not know just what the emergency was, but Bob felt obliged to go. I was terribly upset, but a couple of house guests from Szechwan promised to help me through the move. When Bob's ship for Hankow entered the Yangtze it had to wait for a naval escort; just when we needed his help in the moving, he was sitting idle on shipboard only a few

[4] The area on North Szechwan Road Extended that Grace refers to is precisely the sector, beyond the boundary of the International Settlement, that Bob and Grace found to be of dubious safety in 1905 (chapter 3 and its note 2). Grace was the head of the committee making the decision.

miles away. It took him over six days to reach Hankow—the normal time was three. Bob returned home in late May, but went back and spent most of that summer in Hankow while the American secretary from that city, who was not well, took a holiday with his family in our new Shanghai house.

At a meeting of the American Women's Club in May there was a heated discussion about the suggestion of some of our members that we cable a conference in the United States of the General Federation of Women's Clubs to ask for its aid in securing protection for American women in China. I took part for the first time in club debate when I opposed this suggestion from the floor of the meeting.

In mid-June the lads and I went to Tsingtao. The big excitement of the summer for us was the building of a sailboat, centerboard and all, by young Bob, then sixteen. He had sent to America for patterns and had been working for some time in Shanghai on the small pieces. At Iltis Huk we had a two-story house with a large open veranda on the second floor. This was given over to the carpentry. Young Bob bought American lumber from the Dollar Company and was soon deep in construction work. By strenuous efforts he completed Flying Cloud just before we left at the end of the season.

The Chinese military forces in Tsingtao went into a state of extreme alert in early July.^[5] Things were very tense for a couple of days: lots of soldiers around, machine guns at main intersections, and plenty of talk and rumors. After several days I was almost without money, and we had almost no food save potatoes. Rickshas were unavailable. Any pullers not already impressed by the military were in hiding. I was glad to get a ride into the city with some friends.^[6] I carried a small American flag with me.

After a trip to the Y, where I secured money, and a purchasing time at the market, I went to the garage to hire a car. Cars, it seemed, had either been taken by the military or put into hiding. If I could supply a flag and would wait some time, a conveyance might be found. At last, I was off in a large open car with the top put back in the favorite beach fashion. There I sat all alone, surrounded by my purchases; a fish, two chickens, and the usual greens and fruits added color to the picture. I told the driver where we lived, and sat back in peace. When he took me into strange territory, I found that he was a stranger and had never heard of Iltis Huk. I was able to direct him and we got home safely, but much delayed.

That summer I went to the Tsingtao Barber Shop and Beauty Parlor where

[5] After Chiang Kai-shek took Nanking and Shanghai in the spring of 1927, the Northern warlords joined together to oppose Chiang's expected northward advance. The Northern forces actually drove south to the Yangtze in August. Tsingtao was experiencing ripples of this activity.

[6] Grace had no car in Tsingtao because there was no way of transporting the car that she had in Shanghai. In Shanghai, her car—with a chauffeur—was indispensable. Without it she could never have kept up the pace of her social, organizational, and club activities. Not many women in the missionary community had this mobility.

André, with a few snips of his long shears, cut off my long hair.^[7] The coil looked very pathetic and made me think of our queueless friends in Chengtu in 1911. I was so distraught that I left my extra-good hairpins on his table, and went home with my new short locks blowing in the stiff sea breeze. It had taken me a long time to come to the point of the shears. My men had opposed it; but as soon as they saw me, they approved. So did I, and since then I have never even considered long hair. There is a vast relief in the absence of pins and fussing; and with "Irish hair" like mine, I do not need permanents, combs, or pins to give me the freedom and effect that suits my taste.

One evening soon after Bob's arrival in late August, Dick was absent when supper was ready. I supposed he was at a neighbor's, so after a wait we started dinner. Suddenly, the Boy came in to say that Dick's clothes were on his bed. He must be in the ocean. It was then fully dark. Dick was thirteen, thin and slender. Bob told me not to leave the house. He rushed off with flashlights to the beach, young Bob and his friend spending the summer with us going along. Our Canadian guest, a young woman from Peking, hurried around to the neighbors making inquiries. I spent some of the longest minutes of my life before I heard the welcome call from Bob. They had found the young chap watching some fishermen hauling in their nets on the beach. He had not realized how late it had grown.

Back in Shanghai in September things had settled down to more peaceful ways. There was the same old rush carrying us along in its usual way. The annual dinner of the American Women's Club was at the Hotel Majestic, and I was seated by Admiral Bristol.^[8] It was a big thrill for me to respond to one of the toasts. I had occasion to remember it because Madame H. H. Kung thanked me for the toast when we met at the wedding of her sister, Mei-ling Soong, to General Chiang Kai-shek.

The Chiang-Soong wedding was in the same Hotel Majestic ballroom and was an interesting ceremony. What we saw in the hotel was the public ceremony; the religious one had already been performed privately at the home of the bride's mother. At the Majestic there were between eight hundred and a thousand guests. The flowers and decorations were lavish. The bright lights were intensified by reflectors to facilitate the movie cameras. The refreshments were varied and delicious. But the changing, beautiful scene in that incomparable Majestic ballroom will always be mingled in my memory with a friend's urgency to have some sausage rolls like those being passed at a

[7] André was certainly a White Russian. Thousands of these refugees from the Russian Revolution managed to cross Siberia and find a rather desperate haven in Manchuria and along the China coast. Generally speaking, they had to compete with Chinese for a livelihood. Hair-dressing and beauty care was one occupation in which they did very well. Dressmaking was another. Grace thought very highly of Lily, her Russian dressmaker in Shanghai.

[8] Admiral Mark Bristol was commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet (of which the Yangtze Patrol was a unit).

nearby table. We were close to the bride and saw her dress and veil. Each of us had a slice of the wedding cake. The whole event was a kaleidoscope of beauty, color, and light. I took my piece of wedding cake home and divided it so that each person in the household might have a taste, including the servants—who were much pleased. The newly-weds set up an establishment in a house two doors from us, and we often saw their dark blue Packard in our neighborhood.^[9]

There was still some risk in travel, but Bob left again for Szechwan in mid-October. We heard from him at Hankow and at Ichang, and then there was a silence. Finally, on November 11, I received some letters that had been posted at Wanhsien. This was a relief because it meant that he had passed that portion of the river where there was most danger, both from the river itself and the troops and bandits ashore. He wrote that the steamer had been guarded by two hundred soldiers at the first night's anchorage above Ichang. In spite of this, some bandits got aboard and demanded $1,000 but were finally bought off for $100. It would seem that bandits and guards may not have been complete strangers. The ship was fired on several times, but they got through safely. And Bob was glad that no woman had been along.

The Hankow Y wanted Bob to be posted there permanently, but it was decided that we should remain in Shanghai. Bob was willing to go wherever he might be sent, though he still felt that his greatest contribution could be made through his knowledge of and friendships in Szechwan and his ability to provide a link between the two Szechwan Associations and the National Committee.^[10] That was his main objective. Neither Association wanted to give him up, and in both cities he was in urgent demand for all their money-raising campaigns. The mails were very irregular that winter. Though Bob and I wrote constantly, there were often long gaps between mails. This made things harder for us, as there was still considerable anxiety in the air.

[9] Despite the Kuomintang support of the campaign against foreign settlements and the unequal treaties, the Chiangs were not the only high officials who saw no anomaly in their choosing to reside in the French Concession at Shanghai. Nanking, the capital, was about two hundred miles away.

[10] As a membership organization with varied and innovative activities, the YMCA relied heavily on regular conferences involving Chinese and foreign staff drawn from both the central, coordinating organization (the National Committee) and the local Associations. The motives were to "recharge batteries," introduce new programs, exchange experience, and enable the center to identify and assist in meeting local needs. The long travel time from Shanghai (as Grace has pointed out) deprived the Szechwan YMCAs of the benefit of these conferences, and meant that the National Committee (rather conspicuously) often lacked understanding of the situation and needs of the Szechwan Associations. Bob's assignment as regional secretary was an attempt to remedy this situation: since they could not come to Shanghai, he would go there on a regular basis as a representative of the National Committee. It seemed to work out that he made two extended trips a year (in the spring and fall), which involved his being away from Shanghai about seven months of the year. The suggested move to Hankow might seem to make sense, since it would put him six hundred miles closer to Szechwan; but, by removing him from direct contact for several months each year with the National Committee in Shanghai, it would reduce his ability to provide the linkage that was the purpose of his regional assignment.

46
Committee Woman
(1928-29)

It was a quiet holiday season at the end of 1927. Bob did not get home until mid-January 1928, and he left again three weeks later for Hankow, where he stayed until May.

I worked very hard that spring in the YWCA financial campaign. A friend and I made scores of calls and we were fairly successful. We met a number of rebuffs, a little rudeness, and once in awhile genuine opposition. It was often tiresome waiting to see the higher-ups in company offices, and we sometimes had to repeat our calls several times before seeing the person we sought.^[1] One such series of calls was repaid by the most courteous treatment and fifty dollars in crisp, new bills—a great encouragement to us. As the YWCA at this time operated the only employment agency in Shanghai for stenographers, we did not feel that we had to offer any apology for asking businessmen to help this kind of essential welfare work.

Our worst experience that year was with a real dyed-in-the-wool Fundamentalist. Previously, she had been much interested in the YWCA, but now she told us that she was no longer interested. She would not give a cent, because during Lent we had had some talks at the YW by a faculty member of the Shanghai Baptist College. This man was a fine, forceful speaker, a person of breadth and vision. But to her, "his doctrine was broad enough to take in the very Devil." She kept saying this and that about the YW's "objectionable doctrine," so I took her up on that. My friend and I both insisted that the Christian Associations [YMCA and YWCA] taught no doctrine ; all such teaching was left to the churches. We tried only to put on a program of Christian helpfulness in which men and women of all denominations could

[1] Grace's companion on the fund-raising rounds was Gerry Fitch, whose husband, George, was in the YMCA. H. H. Kung was easier to see, but gave them only twenty dollars. T. V. Soong was hard to see, but gave them fifty dollars.

meet, drawn together by the love of Christ and a desire to further a Christian order of life. She became very fussed and finally declared emphatically that it was better for the Chinese—or anyone—to die in entire ignorance of the gospel than for them to listen to the preaching of a man like our Baptist.

There is nothing in the world that tells one more about human nature than fund-raising. I had my initiation during the Great War, and my education has continued with every such task that I have undertaken since then. One man—I omit his emphatic phrases—said to me: "Don't come to me for money for women! They are after me the whole time for it. My mother wants me to help her; my sisters have the same idea. My wife spends more every year; my daughters are already large enough to come to me for money. I don't get any peace at all; women are after me every day asking for money, money, money. I don't care how people and causes get their support, but I know I have my hands full with my own women and I cannot help any others by so much as a cent." Poor man, I felt great sympathy for him.

A visitor that spring was a woman who made herself out to be a friend of my sister-in-law in the Near East.^[2] I had never met her before, and later discovered that she had used my name to my sister-in-law, who entertained her because she thought the woman was my friend. She was a person who wanted only the best; when I took her shopping, she looked through linens worth about eight hundred dollars and finally spent about eight. Her clothes were rather gay, with flying ribbons and furbelows. When I appeared ready for church on Sunday morning, she let out a great laugh and thought me very amusing. I hope I can see a joke, but I was rather at a loss to understand her levity until she said, "Well, I never! Do you know you look just like San Francisco in your tailored suit, your smart shoes, and plain hat." This was a true compliment. Few have pleased me as much.

The boys were very busy in school. Young Bob was the student manager and enjoyed the position, which carried some responsibility. We all looked forward to the summer: Tsingtao, the boat, and the outboard motor. Bob had promised that if the boat was finished and was a good job, he would buy an outboard motor for it. We had this in Tsingtao in 1928 and the lads greatly enjoyed it. Young Bob also made surfboards, so this was added to other vacation sports.

That spring, after a great deal of discussion, we had bought a residence lot in the French Concession, hoping to build there within the year. We were working on house plans and were getting help from Ferry Shaffer, our Hungarian architect friend. During the summer we learned that the International Committee did not approve of our building a residence. This was a great

[2] The sister-in-law was Bob's sister, Lulu Goodsell, in Turkey.

disappointment to all of us, and especially to Bob, whose dream of building had grown through the years. We were willing to promise that we would move from Shanghai if the need should arise, but that did not suffice.^[3] Other Y men had built homes in China, and at first Bob thought he would build, whether or no. But we finally laid the plans aside. Bob told me that he had given himself entirely to the Y; he had never consciously gone against the desires of the International Committee; and he felt it best not to do so in this case.

The upshot was that Bob abandoned a cherished plan, sold the property, invested his money in other ways—and lost it in Shanghai's financial crash in the spring of 1935. Then, when his money was gone, he regretted bitterly that he had not built as he wished. We would at least have had the house.^[4]

That autumn Bob was off on a strenuous trip into Shansi. He traveled by private car from Taiyuan to Sian and saw a lot of country new to him.^[5] He reached home in Shanghai just before Christmas. The year 1928 had held both joy and disappointment for us.

For the past year I had been one of the representatives of the American

[3] The rationale for the YMCA rule was that owning real estate in the foreign city of one's assignment might limit one's transferability in case that was desired. The American Foreign Service has a similar but broader rule.

[4] One rigid taboo in our family was that finances were never discussed in front of the children. There is much in this sector that we sons have never known. Many years later, Grace told me that Bob had never received more than US$3,000 a year from the YMCA. But we had a bit more to spend than many of our missionary friends (examples: the motor car, my trip to Europe, and some of the mountain equipment Bob bought), so it was no secret that Bob had some outside income. This may have started earlier, but after Bob's father died in 1920, the ranch lands were divided and Bob received his share (one-eighth).
Besides improving our comfort, Bob used this income for good works: some extra-budget items for the local Y, school aid, help to Chinese friends in difficulty, and so on. He also started a commitment which, I am sure, grew in size and duration far beyond Bob's anticipation. When we left Chengtu in 1921, our cook, Liu Pei-yun, who had been our trusted and devoted servant since 1908, decided that he wanted to better himself by going into business. The Chengtu YMCA was about to start construction of a new building; the West China Union University was expanding and new buildings were being built; the city of Chengtu was growing and modernizing; there seemed, therefore, to be a good market for lumber. Nearby supplies were inadequate, but there were forests up the Min River in the "Tribes Country," which we had visited in the summer of 1921 and where Bob's friend Yao Bao-san was already cutting trees. Liu decided to go into the lumber business, and Bob—we assume—agreed to provide some funds to help him get started. Perhaps several things were in Bob's mind. He would be helping a deserving and capable man. He would be helping the YMCA and Union University in construction costs by ensuring that Liu gave them preferential prices. He would maintain contact with this area, which fascinated him, and develop a source of Tibetan religious and household articles (which he collected enthusiastically as long as he lived). And, finally, he would certainly recoup his investment and probably gain a generous profit. Alas, for reasons I did not know and Grace—if she knew—never divulged, things did not go as Bob expected. Instead of receiving a profit, he had to put more and more money into the enterprise.
Grace also mentions losses in the Shanghai financial crash of 1935. Those will best be discussed at that point in Grace's story.

[5] This trip to the YMCAs in China's Northwest would seem to indicate that his regional work in Szechwan had been considered useful.

Association of University Women on the Joint Committee of Women's Organizations. At the Joint Committee election at the end of 1928, I was chosen to be its chairman for the coming year.^[6] This position took up a great deal of my time throughout 1929. I found the responsibilities engrossing, and I deeply appreciated a growing acquaintance with outstanding women of other nationalities. Like every other group, the organization had its problems; but we tried to stick to our goal of exerting an influence for the welfare of the city.

When I was approached about taking this chairmanship, I told the nominating committee that they should consider any possible implications of my belonging to the "missionary group." If it would be a hindrance to the organization, I did not want to accept. To many people in Asian port cities the word "missionary" is like a red rag to a bull. On river steamers I have had women sit at the same table and refuse to converse with me simply because I was classed as a missionary: nationality, education, family, or general appearance are nothing to these critics. I always had the effrontery to think I was about on a level with many that I met; sometimes I felt I might be able to classify people as well as did those who blithely consigned missionaries to the outer limbo of existence. The Joint Committee did not consider my affiliations a hindrance.

I was still a member of the YWCA National Committee and had my own special YW committee, the Foreign Reference Committee. This carried some of the responsibilities of what had been the Foreign Finance Committee. As each month rolled around, I found that I had many committees and such engagements to take up my time.^[7]

My parents had not been well, and I wanted to see Jack, who was finishing his sophomore year at Oberlin. I decided, in April, that I would go to America for the summer. My trip was financed by Bob, and the Y had nothing to do with it. Young Bob finished high school in early June. We sailed a few days after his Commencement, on a ship which carried many of our friends. Young Bob visited California relatives and entered the University of Califor-

[6] I suppose it can be said that Grace, as chairman of the Joint Committee of Women's Organizations, had become the top club woman of Shanghai's large and diverse foreign community (although there was one Chinese organization—the Shanghai Women's Club—that was a member of the Joint Committee). It was just over three years since Grace had returned from America in 1925 and begun to be active. Not bad, one might say, for a woman whose health was deemed to be so frail that the doctors in America did not want her to return to China at all.

[7] Grace omits a great deal. In addition to leadership roles in the Joint Committee and the National Committee of the YWCA, she was active in the American Association of University Women, the American Women's Club, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and a Pan-Pacific Tiffin Club. She also was writing book reviews (usually at least one a week) for the China Weekly Review , published by her friend John B. Powell. And because the Yards in America were having a difficult time, she was buying quantities of Chinese needlework goods for Mabelle to sell. Grace's diaries indicate that she usually tried to sleep late in the morning; but she was normally up before tiffin, and then it was all "go," often until after midnight.

33
Grace in her active Shanghai days—probably during her year (1929)
as chairman of the Joint Committee of Women's Organizations.

nia at Berkeley that August. I visited my parents in Southern California and relatives in several states.

Jack was working at a boys' camp in Michigan. As soon as his season ended, he met me in Chicago. I got off my train from the west early one morning and found him waiting, having reached the city a couple of hours ahead of me. I had not seen my oldest son for more than two and a half years, and was proud of the tall, lithe, sunburned young chap who replaced the

stripling of seventeen that I had parted with in Shanghai.^[8] He went with me on several visits, and I had a week with him in Oberlin where I saw his surroundings and met his friends.

Then back to California I hurried. After farewells there—it was very hard to leave young Bob behind—I was off by train to catch my ship in Vancouver. In the sleeper I had some conversation with a lady who seemed familiar. Later, we met again on shipboard and I learned that she was Dr. Aurelia Rhinehart, the president of Mills College, whom I had met years before when I was a student at Berkeley.

An especially interesting group of my fellow passengers was en route to Japan to attend a conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations. However, sad for me, they were all in first class, and I was in second (this gave me more to use for gifts to take back with me). The rules governing contacts between classes were being rigidly applied. A friend invited me to dine in first class; I had gotten out my evening clothes and was about to dress when he came to my cabin to tell me, in embarrassment, that he was not allowed to entertain me. I then attempted to entertain him and a few others: such a thing, the steward assured me, could not be.

I did have a number of old friends in second class, and I made at least one new one—a young Japanese woman returning from school in England. She had been in another cabin, but her cabin-mate made some fuss about the assignment. I told the steward I had no objection to having her with me. She was a quiet, pleasant roommate.

In our social hall, I played cards almost every evening with three English missionaries, ladies traveling alone like myself. There were several Fundamentalist ladies aboard and they looked askance at us. One of them asked me one day if I was saved. After her opening, we went on to have many conversations. I found I had spent many more years in China than she, and that I knew far more of Chinese life and problems. She had no interest in the YM or YW; most Shanghai church work she considered futile; and of welfare organizations she wanted no part. All that mattered to her was "the evangel" as interpreted by her rigidly narrow sectarianism.

I could not find that she read anything. I was finishing a re-reading of The Brothers Karamazov , and had Clive Bell's Civilization . She would have none of them and even refused Man's Social Destiny by Ellwood. A travel-wise New York friend had sent a large parcel of current magazines to the ship, with the instructions that it was to be delivered to me on the fifth day out. I pressed some of these on the Fundamentalist, but she was not interested. Despite her

[8] Also waiting on the platform to meet Grace was Mabelle. They had not seen each other for more than five years. Indeed, to meet and stay with the Yards was the reason we met in Chicago: Jim had become university chaplain at Northwestern University in Evanston.

concern for my salvation, she was not interested half as much in me as I was interested in her!

Back in Shanghai, I threw all my energies, renewed by the sea voyage, into the affairs of the Joint Committee. For some years there had been talk of staging a large international pageant. The expense, lack of a trained director, and other difficulties loomed large. Now, the China National Committee of the YWCA underwrote the production, and the National Board of the YWCA in America loaned us a director of skill and experience. The Joint Committee undertook the work. Numerous committees were busy for weeks. And the last days were full of errands, rehearsals, unexpected emergencies, sudden changes, and the thousand and one details that go into the staging of such a production.

There is a famous phrase in the Confucian classics: "Within the four seas, all men are brothers." We named our pageant "Within the Four Seas." We advertised and advertised. There was a gorgeous poster, but it offended our White Russian friends because, in drawing the national flags, the artist had included the emblem of Soviet Russia. There were three performances. At the first, the hall was not full. Attendance was better at the second. And for the matinee on the third day, we had a packed house. The effect was cumulative; if we could have had one or two more performances, we would surely have had big crowds—and ended up with a profit.

Our director told us that it was to be expected that we would not at once reap the full benefit of our efforts, that they would appear as time passed. Certainly we benefited by learning to work together. Never can those dancing, lively groups of Scandinavians, Hungarians, Russians, and many others in colorful costumes fade entirely from our minds. At the end, when our tots from all countries in their varied national garb mingled joyfully on the stage with a message of Peace and Brotherhood, we did catch a glimpse of idealism that at the time seemed almost tangible. The Japanese children were so darling. Perhaps if we had a world ruled by children there really would be an end of war!

But all this was work. I look back on that week as the most hectic of my career as housekeeper, helpmeet, and committee woman. Immediately after the last pageant performance, Bob started west again. Meanwhile, I welcomed old Y friends, Will and Mary Lockwood, who were to spend a couple of months with Dick and me.^[9]

[9] The Lockwoods, it may be recalled, welcomed Bob and Grace to China in 1905; and it was with Mary that Grace shared a shaking bed on her first night in China (chapter 3).

47
Storm Brewing
(1930-31)

With Bob away, the family gathering for Christmas that year was reduced to Dick and me. In Szechwan, Bob had an infected hand. Typically, I heard about it, not from Bob, but from a friend in. Shanghai who had received a letter from a friend in Chengtu. When I learned the identity of the Chengtu friend, I stopped worrying. He was famous as an inveterate purveyor of bad news. Time proved that I was right, and Bob came home safely soon after the new year of 1930 had begun.

At the end of January I had a tiffin for members of my college fraternity; a dozen of us celebrated Founders' Day of Kappa Alpha Theta with as good a lunch as my Boy could produce. The next month I had the flu and was laid up in bed for some days. Then, one day, I hemmed three towels, read over three hundred pages, wrote a long letter and two book reviews, played Parcheesi with Dick, and had some bedside visitors. So I felt that I might as well get up.

In April I had a terrible fall on our stairs. Fortunately, I was wearing my heavy fur coat. After resting a few moments, I went on to a Chinese meal with some YW secretaries. When I got to the restaurant I began to feel faint, and even hot tea did not help. So I crept down the stairs and went home in our car. A friend came to spend the night, and the doctor carne and ordered bed rest. For days I lay flat as a flounder, cross and suffering. Dick did everything he could for me. Bob was away again, for he had taken Dr. and Mrs. David Yui to Szechwan. This was the first time that a general secretary of the YMCA National Committee had visited Szechwan. Bob had encouraged and arranged their trip, so it was right that he accompany them.

When I was just able to get about from my injury, I had a telephone call one morning from a man in the business office of the American Methodist Mission. He had received a telegram from Chengtu asking him to pay for a piano which I was to purchase and send west by a man in the Baptist Mission. Then I discovered that the man was leaving Shanghai the next day.

And, in true Shanghai fashion, it was pouring rain. I had to find someone to go with me to hear the tone of the instrument, and then it had to be re-tuned to international pitch. Finally, there were the details of packing, customs clearance, insurance, and obtaining the bill of lading so that it could accompany the piano. My next outside task was to purchase two thousand dollars worth of lingerie for friends in America who wanted to sell it at a hospital benefit. It was rather fun spending such a sum of money so delightfully.

We had arranged to rent a house at Tsingtao for the month of August. In mid-July, with our steamer tickets bought, we had a wire from the owners that it would not be convenient for them to let us have the house. It had been a very hot summer in Shanghai, and we were greatly disappointed. Furthermore, we had to forfeit money on our steamer tickets. The owners were upset that we felt they should pay us that amount, but they did send a check. It was too late to make other plans, so we stayed on in Shanghai. I had recently been elected corresponding secretary of the American Women's Club. That included editing the club yearbook. So most of the hot days of our holiday month, which Bob had expected to spend with Dick and me in Tsingtao, were devoted to typing lists of names and all the other details of publication.

With autumn, Bob was away again, and we had a succession of house guests. In November some of us went to the airfield to meet an English aviatrix, The Honorable Mrs. Bruce, who was making a record-breaking trip, all alone in an open cockpit plane, from London to Tokyo. I found it difficult to imagine such a long flight in so tiny a plane—it was so small that she almost seemed to be riding on the back of some large bird. We women of the Joint Committee entertained her at tiffin. I had expected to find her eager for publicity and excitement; she turned out to be a person of poise, character, and courage, who acted as though she had not done anything unusual.

On his trip to Szechwan, Bob had taken Professor Robertson of the YMCA Lecture Bureau.^[1] It was possible, by that time, to travel between Chungking and Chengtu by motor vehicle.^[2] Because Professor Robertson had a good deal of equipment, they were traveling by truck. While Bob was standing in the back of the truck trying to improve the placement of some of the boxes, an apprentice driver suddenly let in the clutch, causing the truck suddenly to lurch forward. Bob fell backward out of the truck and landed fiat on his back. He had a great deal of pain. When he could be examined by doctors in Chengtu, they decided that he had probably cracked a couple of ribs.

Christmas was shadowed by tragedy. The chairman of the YMCA Na-

[1] This was C. H. Robertson, who had become famous for the originality and dramatic clarity of his popular lectures on science. He was, I expect, one of the models for John Hersey's composite central figure in The Call .

[2] The road surveyed about 1922 by our Hungarian friend, Ferry Shaffer, had finally been completed (chapter 38, note 5).

tional Committee, Mr. S.C. Chu, was kidnapped as he was leaving his home on the morning of the twenty-third. He had a bodyguard, and numerous shots were fired.^[3] It was known that Mr. Chu was wounded. On Christmas Eve he was found, close to death, on a remote street. Although he was rushed to a hospital, it was impossible to save his life.

The funeral, on the last day of 1930, was like no other that I have ever seen. Hundreds of people were there. The large Chinese coffin was in the middle of the large hall. Mr. Chu's body, laid out on a light bamboo cot and covered with a gorgeous red satin embroidered pall, was carried down the stairs into the room. In life, he was a tall, striking-looking man with clear-cut features. In death, his face was like one carved of ivory. The body was placed in the coffin and packed around with small rolls of aromatic herbs. The casket was then sealed with ceremony. Then came the service, conducted according to the Christian procedure, but affecting beyond the ordinary.

The manner of his going, the sadness of knowing that so good a man had been struck down in a craven way while he had been going about his own affairs, the feeling of insecurity that seemed to gather about our thoughts of life, cast a spell on every person in that assembly. Chinese gentlemen in middle life, older people, youths, all had the look of inarticulate suffering that we seldom see in mass expression.

Early in 1931 the question of home leave appeared on the horizon. Normally, we would be due that spring. But, by this time, money was tight: Bob felt that we should offer to remain in China another year.^[4] I was not much in favor of this: Jack was graduating from Oberlin, and Dick was due to go to America to start college. In addition, I was tired of our always being the ones whose furlough was postponed for some reasons connected with the welfare of our organization. It was twenty-six years that spring since we had been appointed to China. We had had only two home leaves, and my health had never been really robust. However, it was decided that we would remain in China.

The next thing to give us pause was the sale of the house that we rented. The new owners wanted a much higher rent, beyond what we could ask the Y to pay in hard times. With Dick soon to be leaving, and Bob away so much

[3] Even the police of the foreign areas of Shanghai were unable to stop these occasional kidnappings for ransom of wealthy Chinese or members of their families. Employment as bodyguards was one line of work in which White Russians were favored.

[4] Writing so soon after the event, Grace apparently considered it unnecessary to explain why "money was tight" in 1931. The Great Depression had started in late 1929; in 1931 the American economy was still sinking. At a time when there was a much greater need for their services, organizations dependent on contributions, like the YMCA, were struggling for their own survival. The International Committee of the YMCA had little endowment or direct income of its own; for its foreign work, it was largely dependent on funds raised by the local associations. In a time of stringency, it was the contribution to distant foreign work that got cut. The reduction in the income of the YMCA International Committee was drastic.

of the time, I felt that the thing was for us to move into an apartment. We found an attractive four-room place at one of the most convenient and fascinating street corners in Shanghai.^[5] Because of the multiple intersections, the building was shaped like a flatiron, and our apartment was on the seventh floor in the nose of the flatiron.

We settled in happily, and Dick was thrilled with a secondhand motorcycle, which ate up the distance to his school each morning. One good servant was all we needed, and I reveled in a super-clean electric range and other modern equipment. Our servant was a coolie-boy, not a cook-boy, and I planned to do much of the cooking myself. The Boy was so careful of the kitchen that each night before he left, he washed the white-tiled floor on hands and knees, backing himself out of the apartment—thus leaving his realm spotless.

But it was not a restful year. Soon after we moved, word came from New York that some of the Y men were to be "demobilized" (I never could bear having that word applied to religious work!). Bob actually received one of these letters. Incredibly, an office blunder sent it to him after the New York office had already decided that he was to be kept on in China. Only the prompt despatch of a cable to the Shanghai office saved Bob the deepest sorrow. I would not minimize by one iota the devotion of every man who had served, or was serving, the YMCA in China, but I doubt if any of them was as deeply affected as Bob by thoughts of change. For one thing, he had been a longer time with the Y than any of the other men involved. And his work was truly his life.

That spring was a terrible one for him. Night after night he lay awake. When Dick was out, he walked the floor—up and down, up and down, through the length of the hall, into the bedroom, and around to the living room again—until I feared that we would have complaints from those living below. Sometimes he walked on the roof. I tried a thousand things to divert him and to change his feeling about the shame that he felt. "It is no shame to lose a position when there is no money to pay employees," I said. But he always countered that the Y was a brotherhood; he had given his life to the work; he knew only China: what could he do in America.

Although Bob stayed, the nearness of his own calamity, and the fact that many of his friends were dropped, oppressed him in a way that even I found hard to understand. His whole life had been shaken. He begged me not to tell our sons of the letter.^[6] He was still devoted to the Chinese Y organization,

[5] They were in the Denis Apartments where Bubbling Well Road was joined by Burkhill, Carter, and Yates roads. But these roads cannot be found in Shanghai today: all the names have been changed.

[6] Grace respected his wishes. But the fact that we boys had no inkling of the true situation, and of the danger Bob was in, increased the shock when the final blow fell.

Grace used the word "demobilized." As I recall, the International Committee of the YMCA sought to make a virtue out of necessity. Its public statement was that it was carrying out what had always been its stated intent: to develop Chinese leadership and then turn the work over to it. This was a policy which Bob had always approved and supported. The issue, to him, was different. When he signed on for international work with the YMCA, John R. Mott and the leaders of the Student Volunteer Movement had asked him to make a life commitment. Bob had gladly given it, but he thought the commitment to be reciprocal.

but I was amazed at the depth of his feeling about the broader situation. He had used his own money freely for the work. When the new Y building was put up in Chengtu, he gave the gymnasium. Many secretaries owed their training to his financial assistance. Few people knew of these benefactions, and he preferred to give in that quiet way. But-he had relied upon the Retirement Fund for his old age. It was a terrible blow that his future income was jeopardized and his whole life threatened.

He talked over every detail of his past life, asking me where he had failed. I assured him that there was no implication of failure. The unintended slight caused him such poignant suffering that, in the end, I wished that what had happened could have been anything else. I felt almost sorry that he had ever gone to China under the Y. But I well knew that the other mission boards had also had to retrench, and that many good and worthy men and women were facing the same problems that had brought him such heart searching.

In the midst of all this, Bob made up his mind to go to America at his own expense. He would see Jack graduate; advise young Bob, who seemed to be unhappy at Berkeley; and welcome Dick when he arrived. Almost as soon as this decision was made, a cable informed us that young Bob was already on the ocean on his way to Shanghai. Having sent him no travel money, we were interested, when he arrived, in how he had financed his trip. Very calmly, he said that he had simply drawn his own funds from his bank account. Young Bob was a hard worker who always delighted to stand on his own in financial matters. He was not satisfied with college life and wanted our permission to go into aviation. I longed to keep him in China, but our own existence seemed uncertain, and we knew of no immediate opening for him. We gave our consent to the aviation venture. But, back in California, he changed his plans again and entered the College of Commerce at UC. His father gave up his intended trip to America.

Our next parting was with Dick, who left soon after his high school graduation. He had arranged to help a family of American friends from Shanghai drive across the American continent.^[7] He saw a lot of his own

[7] The family that Dick helped drive across America was that of Richard M. Vanderburgh, director of the Mission Photo Bureau in Shanghai and perennial scoutmaster of the Shanghai troop of the Boy Scouts of America. His imagination, enthusiasm, and patience were almost beyond belief. He brought all three of us boys up through the classes of scout craft. If I were nominating people for heaven, he would be in the front rank.

country, visited Washington, D.C., and returned to California by bus.^[8] That September he entered Pomona College.

It had been hard to see the other boys go, but to lose Dick was a calamity. As long as we had him, we felt that we were not bereft. It is a difficult thing to have to part from children during their most formative years; and at the time that Richard left us, we needed all the solace we could get from our own. But, by Bob's choice, Dick left without knowing the circumstances which had oppressed us so for the past several months.

We continued on as usual. Bob went to Szechwan again that autumn. I was occupied with the various activities that would have filled my life to overflowing had I permitted it. I had to hold back constantly because of the doctor's orders.^[9] In September the Japanese had gone into Manchuria and, ignoring the League of Nations, had speedily set up their puppet empire of Manchukuo. Some of our friends among the Japanese club women in Shanghai were pressured into a rather amusing effort to propagandize us about the "kind" intentions of the Japanese.

Bob reached home on December 23 just in time for Christmas. Then we were surprised by a cable from New York telling us to leave for furlough as soon as possible. We had a hectic month. We were fortunate in selling our lease (and the Austrian doctor who bought it considered himself fortunate). Then we had to pack. And Bob, as always, had a long list of commissions and orders from his recent trip. As the time for the ship sailing came close, the tension with the Japanese in Shanghai increased each day. On the day we sailed, in late January [1932], Chinese friends seeing us off said they felt certain that serious trouble would begin within a few days.

[8] Dick also stopped in Oberlin for our first reunion in five years.

[9] Despite the doctor's orders, Grace became an active member, at about this time, of the Shanghai Short Story Club. One reduction in her activities was to resign from the Daughters of the American Revolution; but it was disagreement with some of its policies, rather than the doctor's wishes, that motivated her.

48
The Blow Falls
(1932-34)

Our Chinese friends' fears were right. By the time we reached Kobe, the Japanese had launched their attack of January 28, 1932, on the Chinese-controlled areas of Shanghai close to the International Settlement.^[1] In mid-ocean we had a radiogram from Dick in California, asking if his father was on the ship. Knowing his dad's wanting to be on hand to help in all Szechwanese catastrophes, he feared that he would not have left China at such a critical hour! It was good to cable back that we were both on board.

Distressing as the news from Shanghai was, we had an important reason for feeling relief and joy. Just before we left Shanghai, we had received word from the YMCA of Scranton, Pennsylvania, that Bob's support had been taken on by that Association and would be continued until his sixtieth year, the retirement age for all Y secretaries.^[2] And we had confirmation of this from the International Committee in New York. Nothing else at that time could have put such thankfulness into his heart. Over and over, he related to me the feeling that he had for the Y.

His remarks to me were painful to hear. He reminded me that he had no

[1] After the Japanese seizure of Manchuria in September 1931 there had been much anti-Japanese agitation in China. The Japanese government tried to hold the Chinese government responsible for not doing better at controlling these expressions of popular feeling. After several rather minor anti-Japanese incidents in the Chinese areas of Shanghai, the Japanese decided on punitive measures. The gallant, though unsuccessful, defense by General Tsai Ting-kai's Nineteenth Route Army proved that Chinese soldiers, well led, could fight—and won China much international sympathy.

[2] A younger Y secretary in Shanghai was one of the first men affected by the Depression-caused reduction in force. Returning to America at a relatively early stage, he became general secretary of the YMCA in Scranton. He had been a close friend and admirer of Bob's. Perceiving, probably more clearly than Bob and Grace, the trend of events in America and their probable effects on the Y's foreign-work budget, he thought he could save Bob by persuading his board of directors to guarantee the funding of Bob's salary.

34
Bob in Berkeley in the spring of 1933 just before returning to China with
his Y future, he thought, assured.

ambition save to work with the Y. Late furloughs meant nothing to him; he was pleased that he had never taken time out for any long illness save the one that laid him low when he first arrived in Szechwan. He had never asked for special treatment. As a general secretary, he was willing for the other members of the staff to make summer plans and leave him to carry the burden of

the less desirable months. He asked for nothing except a chance to work in China for the Y.

We were on furlough in the United States for the rest of 1932. Bob returned to China in March of 1933; I did not go back until that September. During all that time we moved around a good deal and had no settled home. Bob spent most of his time in visiting YMCAs, giving talks—and helping the International Committee raise money for its foreign work. We went first to Berkeley, where young Bob was at the university. It was good to see him and to meet his fiancée, Esta Fowle, and her parents, who lived nearby. For much of the spring, I was in Southern California, near Dick and my parents. Bob and I motored east in August. We traveled via the Redwood Highway, the Columbia River, Yellowstone National Park, and the Black Hills (Bob was eager to see Borglum's gigantic carvings on Mount Rushmore). This gave us the opportunity to visit many relatives and friends in various states. In the Chicago area I stayed (several times) with Jim and Mabelle Yard, and visited my many relatives in Independence, Iowa. Bob filled a large number of speaking engagements. Because we were in the East, we missed Bob and Esta's wedding in September.

For Christmas we were in Brookline, Massachusetts, with the Goodsells, the family of Bob's sister Lulu. From there we went to New York. Next was a heart-warming week in Scranton. We stayed with our Y friends from Shanghai. Bob talked at Rotary and other organizations, and we were made to feel that we had enthusiastic support. Our next stop was Washington, D.C. We were there, in January 1933, when Jack passed the oral examination for the State Department's Foreign Service. We also had the pleasure of meeting Colonel and Mrs. E. H. Schulz and their daughter Caroline, whom Jack was hoping to marry.

From there our car took us down through the Carolinas, with stops to visit relatives and friends. We went on to Florida, met Jack in New Orleans, and drove to the West Coast. Bob had planned this trip carefully and was very eager to take it. I hesitated to go with him for fear that I would get too tired and spoil his pleasure. He was most thoughtful and made the stages short enough for me to enjoy them. Bob loved driving and felt boundless happiness in conducting this tour around the States.

Back in California, the next order of business was to get Bob and Jack off for China. Although Jack had passed the entrance examination for the Foreign Service, he had learned that—because of the Depression and reduced appropriations—no appointments to the career service would be made for some time. He therefore decided to go to China and seek a clerical position in one of the consulates there^[3] Just before they were due to leave, in March

[3] The plan was successful. In June 19331 was appointed clerk at the consulate in Kunming (then still often called Yunnanfu) in southwest China.

1933, our newly inaugurated President Roosevelt declared a bank holiday. This meant that it was a scratch to secure enough ready cash so that they could attend to necessary shopping before they left.^[4]

I did not go back to China with them. During the spring I was in Claremont, where Dick and I had a small house and enjoyed life together. The summer we spent in Berkeley, and there I was joined in September by Caroline Schulz, who went to China with me to marry Jack. When I was ready to leave, my Berkeley doctor thought I should not return to China at all. I finally got his permission by using the old argument that life in China was physically less work for the foreign housewife. Caroline and I shared a cabin on the ship and arrived in Shanghai at the end of September. Getting married might seem enough excitement for one year, but on arrival in Shanghai Caroline had to have an operation for appendicitis. The most practical plan for the young people to get together was for Jack to meet her in the French Indochina port of Haiphong and for them to be married there.^[5] But it turned out that there were many obstacles to the marriage of nonresident aliens in a French colony. Bob spent days and days, with the help of an American lawyer friend, in getting the French officials to unwind the endless red tape involved.

The Y wanted Bob to become the regional secretary for Shantung. He felt that he had to leave Shanghai before Caroline was ready to start south to meet Jack. So he went ahead, and I followed as soon as I had seen Caroline off on a ship for Haiphong. I had a terrible time leaving Shanghai, on November 4, because my ship was not at the wharf where I had been told it would be—but across the Whangpoo River at a dock in Pootung. I, and my friends seeing me off, found out just in time to hire a motor launch to catch the boat.

Shantung was an entirely new venture for us. We had spent several summer months at Iltis Huk, the beach resort just outside Tsingtao. But our contacts were all with the summer holiday crowd, most of them—like us—from Shanghai. The Y wanted a man for regional work there. And they held out hopes to Bob that he still might now and then be able to go west. It seemed that some of the people in New York could not understand how Bob could function adequately as a regional secretary for Szechwan while living, not within his region, but far away in Shanghai. Of course an important part of his work was to provide a continuing link between Shanghai and Szechwan. But these matters were not always clear to offices halfway around the world.

[4] The most important item of the "necessary shopping" was to pay for our steamship tickets (checks were not being accepted). One of Bob's elder brothers, who was a jeweler in Berkeley, was able, finally, to help us.

[5] It was a three-day trip by train from Haiphong to Kunming—not to be thought of, in those days, for a young unwed couple to make alone.

When we first went to China we had resolved never to stick at any appointment. Now the Y wanted a regional man in Shantung, and we were glad to go.^[6]

The first plan had been for us to go to Tsinan and occupy a YMCA residence there. But Bob had been traveling all through his region since he had reached China that April. He had concluded that he was needed more as a resident of Tsingtao. Incidentally, it would also be better for me to be there in the summers. He was glad, therefore, when his appointment was altered and we were told to go to Tsingtao. We were eagerly looking forward to having our home set up there.

In Tsingtao we were welcomed by the Chinese staff of the Y. Within a month we had found a house, unpacked our goods, and settled in quite nicely. There was a lovely view of the hills and sea from our windows. The only drawback was that I felt the cold of the floors, but Bob did not feel that we should incur the additional cost of renting a house with a furnace. He wanted to keep our rent lower than the amount brought in by the rental of the Y house in Tsinan. Most of the time we were comfortable with a stove-like heater which substituted for a furnace.

Christmas passed. In January 1934 Bob went to Shanghai to attend a Y conference. He wrote me that more men were being dropped by the New York office, but we had had a letter saying that we were to be kept on. My health was not good that winter, and my new Tsingtao doctor (a German) had ordered me to spend one day a week in bed. On January 29 I was in bed when a packet of letters arrived. I opened Bob's first. He had been "demobilized." This seemed an especially cruel blow; but I did not know then how cruel it was.

It was a broken-hearted letter. He asked me what to do. He was lacking a few months of being fifty-five. He knew there was no hope of a post in Y work in America, where even young men were being let go because of lack of funds. Should we stay in China, or what could we do? I sent word back at once that he should remain in Shanghai and try to secure some work there. I knew he could never carry it through to go home from his beloved China after being "turned off," as he phrased it.

His reputation and his friendships were more valuable than Bob realized. Within a few days, he was approached by friends on the staff of the China International Famine Relief Commission (CIFRC). The Commission wished to open an office in Shanghai to raise money from Chinese for its annual budget and reserves. Bob had always been successful at persuading Chinese to contribute to the Y, so they thought he would be a good man for this position. He came back to Tsingtao on February 11. A few hours before he was

[6] A regional secretary was being assigned to Shantung because the several YMCAs there were by this time without a single American secretary.

due, a telegram had arrived, telling him to come right on to Peking as he was wanted there at the headquarters of the CIFRC for a conference. When I saw him and realized how bravely he was keeping up under this new change, it almost broke me up completely. I felt that I could not bear to let him go off alone. When I told him that I wanted to go with him, he agreed.

Two days later we both left for Peking. On the train, Bob made a remark that has come back to me many times since: "I thought I had given you certainty when I brought you to China. Now I know I have nothing of that kind to offer you." His heart seemed crushed by the turn things had taken. I kept telling him that it was not his fault, that these things were not of the fault of any individual, but of the times and of the Depression. He never could view these matters as I did. We looked for some letter of explanation from the New York office: none came. Later, we heard from Scranton that our support was still being carried by the Association there: this only made the wound in Bob's heart the deeper. All we could do was to try to forget; but after so many years it is not an easy thing to change one's life plan. And I knew the blow was largely my fault because my health had not permitted us to remain in Szechwan.

We spent a fortnight in Peking and then came back to Tsingtao. The new work meant that we must return to Shanghai. In many ways I welcomed that. We started to pack the very day that we arrived back. Tsingtao women had been most cordial, and I was just beginning to entertain some of them when everything had to be canceled for the trip to Peking. Now it was all haste for departure.

In Shanghai we rented a small furnished fiat while we hunted a more permanent location. Caroline, Jack's wife from Kunming, was with us that summer. When a suitable apartment was found, she helped me move and get settled. It was a modern building, and we enjoyed its comforts and excellent location. Soon we had swung back into the busy life of Shanghai again.^[7] Bob found his work agreeable and challenging. He was touched by the friendliness of all his old companions.^[8] A young Chinese friend who had worked with Bob in the Y decided to leave the Y in order to join him in the Famine Relief Commission.^[9]

[7] Grace was soon asked to let her name be put up for president of the American Women's Club. She declined. She did go on the executive committee of the Joint Committee of Women's Organizations, but resigned after a few months. She was having more trouble, again, with her health. And she no longer had a car.

[8] They were still a part of the, by then very much reduced, YMCA community. Bob kept up his regular participation in the weekly Y prayer meetings—which also served as a social gathering.

[9] Grace was referring to Mr. C. H. Lowe (Lou Chuan-hua). After many adversities, Mr. Lowe ended his working career as librarian of Chinese books at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

But as .the months passed I realized more and more how deeply Bob had been hurt by the fact that he had never had any letter of explanation as to his "demobilization." In the summer of 1934, he had letters from the YMCA at the University of California, where they still considered him their China representative, asking why he had not sent them his usual Y letter. He was obliged to write and inform them that he was no longer under the Y in China. The fact that he, not the New York office, was the one to impart this news to his university association was hard for him to take. He never, no matter how much one could say, seemed to get away from the belief that he must have been considered unworthy.^[10]

[10] One of the most unhappy aspects of a situation like that of the Y in China was Who stays? Who gets fired? Only a small nucleus could be retained. Those kept on tended to be either top executives or men with a strong public personality. Bob no longer had an executive position. And he was not really a public person. He worked most effectively with small groups and always avoided the center of the stage (in group photographs he would always be found in the back row or at one side). He excelled in personal contacts, in patient, nonconfrontational leadership. These were qualities that the Chinese he worked with valued highly; but the decision was made in New York. It was not, then, a matter of being "unworthy," but rather that his quiet, self-effacing work-style was not what the New York administrators of the Y felt was needed at the time.
What then of Grace's belief that he would not have been terminated if her health had permitted them to remain in Szechwan? There is no way of knowing; but my guess is that Grace may have been right. If Bob had been able to stay in Szechwan, he would have been on his home ground as the founder and kingpin of the two active, well-established Associations in Chengtu and Chungking. His prestige and friendships would have been important considerations. But he had gradually been moved away from Szechwan and direct involvement there. The local Associations had gotten along in early days without a regional secretary; the position, then, could be seen as nonessential. Living so far from his region made it also appear—in New York—that it could be dispensed with. The final step that weakened his position was for him to be cut off entirely from Szechwan and sent away to a wholly new region, Shantung, where he had no roots and no local support.

49
Bob Leaves Us
(1935)

In November 1934 young Bob and his wife, Esta, came from America and stayed with us. I had a bad time with ulcerated teeth that winter. Six had to be extracted, and I was laid up in bed a good deal. As soon as I was able to be around, I noticed that Bob was losing flesh and did not seem in his accustomed good health. We all thought that he was not well. As usual, he made light of it; but he did tell us that he had been to the doctor. We attended to his diet and tried to do all we could for him. In July young Bob and Esta went to Macao, where Bob had work with an engineering construction company building a new waterworks. Almost as soon as they left, we welcomed Dick, who had just graduated from Pomona.

That spring two events occurred which should have affected Bob more than they did. One of the men from the New York headquarters of the International Committee was in Shanghai and told Bob that his separation from the Y would not be long. It was the intention of the Committee to take him back. One would have thought that this would be great good news to Bob. He was glad, because he felt he was irrevocably bound to the Chinese Y. Also, he hoped to regain his retirement benefits. But now he was doubtful about the administration of the Retirement Fund, which he felt was being administered in the interest of the New York office rather than to protect the interests of the employees. He was approaching fifty-six and should be working for the Y if he was going to be able to receive a pension. He could receive no assurances whether he would continue to be eligible. But he believed that some such arrangement must be within the power of the International Committee, if it wished to do so.^[1]

[1] Grace was writing soon after the events, while the wounds were still fresh. To her, the important fact was that the Y had "fired" Bob. The situation, I think, was a bit more complicated.
The original decision to terminate Bob (in January 1934) was taken in New York. It may have

been influenced in part by the impression Bob made during his home leave in 1932-33. What the International Committee wanted at the time was a strong, effective speaker to help their failing efforts to raise funds. This was not Bob's forte. No matter how strongly he believed in the cause, he was not very good at convincing strange American audiences that they should give money to Y work in China when their own needs at home were so close and so apparent.
After the termination became known in China, there was a critical reaction there. Bob was well known (in China, if not in New York), and he was a senior secretary with almost thirty years of service. After Bob had joined the Famine Relief Commission, the executives of the Y in China persuaded New York to accept a different formula. It was decided that Bob had "been granted a two years' leave of absence for special service in establishing and directing the Shanghai Office of the China International Famine Relief Commission." The general assumption, however, was that the two-year term might be longer—depending on whether the financial situation of the International Committee improved. And there were legal and technical uncertainties about how this "loaned out" status might affect Bob's rights in the YMCA retirement fund.

Bob was humble, but he felt that he had done a man's work in the Y. He said many times to me that he could not bear to think of any other man suffering as he had because of the financial effects of the Depression. Now, he did not want to work with the organization of his long allegiance any longer than was absolutely necessary. And he told me that if he was taken back, he planned to ask for retirement at the earliest possible moment. In his mind, he was still a secretary in good standing, and his budget for foreign work was still being raised by the Scranton Association. He had been dismissed by cable for no reason save that the International Committee wished to use his salary and allowances elsewhere. When he protested against this treatment, he was told by the New York office that he had nothing to say in the matter.^[2] The result of all this, he said, was that he could never be at peace again in the Y. He stood for a higher idealism than he had found in the organization.

The other event of moment to our family was a financial crash in Shanghai, which carried away all our savings for our years in China. This made strangely little impression on Bob.^[3] I never heard him rail against his losses,

[2] "Nothing to say in the matter" probably refers to the fact that the central organization had to have the final word in important personnel decisions. If enough local Associations adopted individual secretaries and demanded that they be retained, the International Committee would lose effective control over its program and personnel.

[3] Grace's brevity about the Shanghai financial crash may have been because the events were recent. But it was probably also a particularly painful subject to dwell on.
Shanghai's prosperity during and just after World War 1 encouraged a local American businessman, Frank J. Raven, to organize the American-Oriental Bank. Mr. Raven married the daughter of a well-known American missionary family. He was active in the American community church and supported the appropriate good causes. His small, friendly bank was glad to have the (usually small) accounts of missionaries. They responded eagerly. Many of them put their money in the American-Oriental Bank, and some of the business agents of various missions entrusted it with their missions' operating funds. Through the 1920s business tended to be good in Shanghai. Mr. Raven's bank grew, and he started several affiliated enterprises: realty, finance, and investments.
Soon after Grace and Bob moved to Chungking in 1921, Mr. Raven visited Chungking to establish a branch of his bank. He was a fellow Californian (UC 1899). Bob and Grace became friendly with him and with several of the men who came to work for the bank in Chungking. An especially warm friendship was formed, as we know, between Grace and Hugo Sandor. Later, in Shanghai, Grace was a close friend of Mrs. Raven's. It was natural for Bob and Grace to bank

with the Raven bank. And Bob, who did not pretend to be a businessman but trusted his friends, invested his outside income (from the ranch land he had inherited from his father) in stock and other offerings of the Raven companies.
By 1933 Shanghai was feeling some effects of, but seemed to be weathering, the worldwide depression. Then it suffered a totally unexpected blow. The political clout of two American senators from Nevada strong-armed the Congress into passing the Silver Purchase Act, and President Roosevelt into signing it (he needed the senators' support for New Deal legislation). The benefit to the few remaining silver producers in Nevada was minor (there was no hope of reviving the boom days of the Comstock Lode). But the effect in countries, principally China, on a silver standard was catastrophic. By greatly raising the price of silver, it caused sudden deflation, credit contraction, and severe slump. China was quickly forced to give up her historic silver standard.
This blow, on top of the depression, was too much for many Shanghai enterprises. The American-Oriental Bank, and the affiliated Raven companies, failed and went into bankruptcy. Depositors in the bank eventually received about one-third on their deposits, but the investments were all lost. Unfortunately, it was later found that in the attempt to save the companies there had been some legal improprieties. Thus, as Grace says, she and Bob lost all their savings. (Caroline and I also had our checking account in the American-Oriental Bank. Fortunately, it was small.)
But the situation for Bob was even more bleak. To finance the lumber business and other enterprises of Liu Pei-yun (see chapter 46, note 4), Bob had borrowed money from a Chinese bank. By 1935 this debt amounted to about five times Bob's annual salary—and was growing at one percent a month. So Bob was worse than penniless. Knowing none of these details at the time, I had been much surprised, before Bob's illness, to receive a letter asking if I could loan him a thousand dollars. He offered no explanation, but I knew the situation must indeed be dire—and was glad I had the money to send.
There was no blame or responsibility ascribed to Hugo. That friendship continued.

or blame any persons concerned. He blamed his own judgment, which he had always said was not that of a businessman; his interests had been elsewhere, and he had left investments to those who managed them. He did frequently say that he had made a mistake in not building a house in Shanghai as he had wanted to do. And he often mentioned that because of these losses, it was, all the more, "a time when he should have been in the Y" (because the Y would have provided some security for old age).

In July he was taking half days off in lieu of a vacation. Having worked for the Famine Relief Commission only about fifteen months, he felt that he could not take a full vacation. He went to his office every morning and came home many afternoons. At home he did not do much but sit about. Looking back now, I can see that he felt more ill than he acknowledged.

In early July there was the good news of the birth, in Kunming, of our granddaughter Virginia. Bob spoke frequently of how happy he was to have another little Virginia in the family and of how he wanted to see the child. It was not until he had to go to bed in August that he gave way at all. He was worried about the work in his office and sent Dick down as a volunteer to try to help out. Day by day, in spite of the doctors, his strength declined. The doctors came often. Other doctors were brought in for consultation. Everything possible was done.

Our Y friends were so used to knowing Bob as a strong, athletic man that they could not believe he would not recover. But I knew that the spring of

his life was broken. When the doctors told me that he could not live, I took the news as I knew he would want me to take it.^[4] There was no time those days for tears. We cared constantly for our sick man at home. He knew that he was often in a half-coma and asked that visitors not be taken in to see him. There were continual callers; some old friends, especially Chinese, were surprised and disappointed at not being able to see and visit with him.

The Y men in Shanghai made a vigorous effort to have Bob reinstated in full standing so that medical costs could be paid, and so that I would receive a pension. Papers were signed, but he was skeptical of their effect. He told me not to expect anything from it all, but I always assured him that he was "back in the Y." Actually, we were assured that pension rights would be restored as of October 1 of that year.^[5]

We kept ourselves busy in this way for the last few weeks. The doctors had asked me not to tell him that he could not live. Bob, I believe, thought that, because of my health, the doctors had not told me of his true condition. Neither of us, therefore, ever spoke of death. Finally, on September 11, I sent a telegram to Jack at Kunming. When I told Bob, he said at once, "I shall not see him. It takes too long for him to come." But the next day I was able to tell him, "Jack is flying and will soon be here." As it happened, he arrived that very day, even sooner than we had thought possible.^[6] Jack was a great comfort to his father, and a support for me. In a few days Bob arrived from Macao. I was indeed fortunate to have my three sons with me in those hard days.

Friends constantly sent flowers to Bob, and he was always pleased and surprised. Many times he said that he had never sent flowers when people were ill: why should anyone send them to him? He was anxious to have thanks sent; I made it my business those days to answer every note and inquiry that came. Finally the letters began to come from those far away, and it was hard to read them—but such things have to be done. I was glad that I could occupy my mind in such ways, for life seemed to be closing around me. When we had talked, long before, of old age or death, Bob had always assured me that he would be with me to care for me. I think he assumed, since I had been far from well at various times, that I would surely go first.

[4] The doctor's diagnosis was "cirrhosis of the liver," but he told Grace that Bob's case could be considered "similar to cancer."

[5] As l understand it, when the leaders of the China Y learned that Bob was dying, they asked the International Committee in New York to return him to active duty (he was technically on a leave of absence). This was to clarify Grace's pension situation. The best that New York felt able to arrange was October l. Many of the men in Shanghai helped in these endeavors, especially Eugene Barnett.

[6] The quick flight was possible because a plane of the China National Aviation Corporation was in Kunming to check out terrain and facilities in preparation for opening regular service. The plane was just preparing to return to Shanghai and they gave me a lift. My first impression when I saw Bob was the surprised realization that this inveterate competitor had given up and had no wish to go on living.

All I could say was that I wanted to go with him. Death, after all, is not the hardest thing; life can easily be far more difficult.

There is no need to recount the anguish of days in watching the slow starvation of a loved one. Little by little, his strength failed. When he could no longer shave, he apologized to me. When he could no longer bathe, he was unhappy. He hated being a trouble to anyone, but he did want to stay in his own home. The doctors agreed to this, and I am glad that the presence of the three sons made it possible. With them and two excellent man-servants, we were fixed for nurses and helpers.

Bob slipped away in a deep coma one Sunday evening, somewhat as our little Virginia had gone. I had hoped that he would rouse and know us at the last, but there was no sign of that—simply a deeper sleep and then the ceasing of his breath. The date was September 29, 1935.^[7]

Years before, we had talked of death and l knew his wishes. He desired no funeral. We arranged only a small memorial service, held by the kindness of the Chinese YMCA in their new building in the French Concession. Brief remarks were made by several old friends from different circles of his associates: Szechwan, the YMCA, California, the Masons, and the Famine Relief Commission. His body was cremated and left in the undertaker's vault until I would be able to carry the ashes to our grave in Chungking.

The tributes that poured in to me were heartfelt and touching. In his quiet way Bob had influenced many people. His lovely spirit made itself known in a myriad of kindly acts, often unknown save to the recipients. Szechwan friends arranged memorials there, and I later received a bound volume of the addresses. One friend wrote of Bob as "your splendid, energetic, vital husband." Those words seemed well chosen. Another, a Canadian who had known us when we first went to West China, wrote: "We express our gratitude for his friendship and the stimulus of his stirring and courageous life. It was a great thing to have known him in those early years when, so full of vigor, laughter, goodwill, and great aims, he had all Chengtu from lowly coolie to highest officials for his friends, and when he, as no other, helped to set high standards for rulers and people." One of his Chinese associates spoke of him as one who had Chinese characteristics. This referred to his tolerance and willingness to see another's position. Often he felt that compromise was better than arbitrary action.

[7] Bob died thirty hours before he would have been returned to active duty—and Grace made eligible for a pension. Some time later, the International Committee, through the active efforts of Mr. Barnett, did approve a pension for Grace, but smaller than she would have received had Bob lived to October 1 (my recollection is that it was US$50 per month).

50
Starting Anew
(1935-37)

There were a thousand things to attend to. One of the first was to find a smaller and more affordable apartment. This was quickly done, and Jack was able to help me move before he left for the long trip back to Kunming. While he was in Shanghai, Jack had received · his long-awaited appointment to the career Foreign Service. He was assigned to the embassy in Peking to study Chinese. Bob had already gone back to his job in Macao. The next event was that Dick, who was staying with me in Shanghai, received an appointment as clerk at the American consulate at Foochow.

One November day Caroline arrived and laid my sweet little granddaughter in my arms. She and the baby had been able to come by air, and it seemed like a miracle to hear of the speed and safety of their trip.^[1] Jack came the long way, by Haiphong and Hong Kong, to bring their luggage and household goods. He arrived in a few days, and they were off to Peking by train. Dick soon left for Foochow, and I was alone in the apartment over Christmas.

These very hard weeks after Bob's death seemed harder than I could have endured without my friends. I was still worried over my finances. If Bob had lived into October, I would have been eligible for a pension. As it was, I was not to receive anything. There were also some complications about the New York office's handling of some of the insurance matters. Mr. Robert E. Lewis

[1] Air service—by the Chinese company in which Pan-American was a partner—had just been extended to Kunming. The first day's flight was from Kunming to Chungking in a Ford trimotor. Caroline and the baby stayed overnight with the McCurdys, old friends of Grace and Bob's Chungking days. The second day was from Chungking to Hankow in a four-passenger Loening amphibian (Caroline remembers that one of the plane doors was tied shut with string). The plane actually flew through the gorges. For the third day's flight to Shanghai, the plane was a Stinson.

gave me a great deal of help, and progress was made in solving some of these problems.^[2]

In Foochow Dick had a pleasant apartment and asked me to join him. I hurried my departure from Shanghai in late December when I learned that Dick had pneumonia. By the time I reached him, just after New Year of 1936, he was recovering from the pneumonia but had new symptoms which finally required an emergency operation for appendicitis. While I was on my way to his hospital, I was thrown from a ricksha when the puller lost control going down a hill. So when Dick was being operated on, we were lying in separate hospitals. Fortunately, I had no serious injury. But the operation to remove Dick's appendix revealed that he had intestinal tuberculosis.

The doctors said that Dick would have to stop work so that be could have complete rest for at least six months or a year. And they urged that this rest be in a better climate than hot and damp Foochow. But how and where were we to go! Travel cost and medical and living expenses in America would be a problem. Jack and Caroline had a comfortable house in Peking, and the Peking Union Medical College was the best in China—and perhaps as good as could be found anywhere. They offered us a friendly roof. We stayed several days in Shanghai with Eugene and Bertha Barnett, who had already been like brother and sister during Bob's illness and death.

Jack came and helped us travel to Peking by train. After a month at the P.U.M.C. hospital, Dick had made good progress, and the doctors urged us to find a way for him to live in the hills outside Peking. Jack found a very suitable house at Patachu in the Western Hills, about ten miles outside the city. He sublet his city house, bought a car, and found that one of his Chinese teachers was willing to make the trip from the city each day by bus.^[3] So we all—five, including the baby, Virginia—spent six delightful months looking off our hillside terrace onto a peaceful countryside—which only a year later was to be the scene of the hostilities that started the 1937 Sino-Japanese War. We had a capable Chinese male nurse for Dick, who cooperated so well with his treatment that he gained sixty pounds.

At the end of the six months, the P.U.M.C. doctors were pleased with Dick's recovery. He was to continue rest, but it was agreed that we could move back into the city (welcome news because it was now October and the

[2] Mr. Lewis was one of the two Y secretaries who met Grace and Bob when they arrived at Shanghai in 1905. Even though Bob did not qualify for a pension, his widow did receive several death-benefit payments from the YMCA. In addition there was Y group insurance and several personal insurance policies. The Chinese bank, which over many years had already received interest payments exceeding the original loan, accepted a final lump sum payment of about one half the outstanding debt. The balance of the insurance and other funds was put into a ten-year annuity for Grace. She outlived that term, but by that time she had a modest inheritance from her father.

[3] It was Grace who paid for the car. When we left Peking, the car was sold for what it cost, and Grace received her money back.

hill bungalow was not built for Peking's cold winters). When I had settled Dick with Jack and Caroline in the city, I felt that I was finally free to carry out one important unfinished mission: to take Bob's ashes back to Chungking.

From Peking I traveled by train to Shanghai, and then by steamer up the old familiar route to Chungking. When I arrived there, Chinese friends wanted to have a ceremonious laying away of the ashes. I knew that Bob would not have approved. I did not even wish to set a time very long ahead, since the weather was apt to be wet, and nothing is more dismal than to gather around a grave in the rain. One bright day I told the few Chinese and foreign friends who were to go with me that we would meet at the grave of our little Virginia at three that afternoon.

One friend at the mission near the cemetery had had a considerable layer of earth taken off the grave, which is enclosed by a stone coping. Another old friend from the Canadian Mission had unsealed the casket containing the ashes. I sat on the stone coping and poured the ashes slowly onto the earth. The ashes were beautiful, silvery grey, tangible rather than impalpable. With my bare hands I spread them about on the brown loam. The fresh earth from the grave lay there ready to be put back. But the men of our group carried the first layer in their hands and laid it over the ashes until none could be seen. I said a few words trying to express how deeply my husband loved Szechwan and its people, and how, when I first stood by that grave, we had no friends in the province. The Canadian friend offered a short and beautiful prayer, and the American friend spoke to the Chinese of our feeling regarding cremation—which they do not favor.^[4] The waiting attendant soon replaced all the earth on the mound. By the kindness of a friend, we left a sheaf of bright chrysanthemums to cheer the bareness of the newly turned sod.

I had done what Bob desired, and I was thankful that strength had been given me to do it. A new stone, with the two names of Virginia and Bob, was soon set up. I like to think that now the grave lies among friends. As long as friends remain there, someone will care for the spot.^[5]

After a pleasant stay in Chungking, I flew on to Chengtu. Here I spent

[4] Since the establishment of the People's Republic, the official policy has been to encourage cremation—in order to reduce the use of valuable farm land for graves. Many Chinese, however, still prefer burial.

[5] When Grace lay ill, shortly before her death, she charged me to place her ashes with Bob's in the Chungking grave. At that time, in 1954, there was no way for Americans to travel to China. We carried the ashes with us for sixteen years. In 1970 Nixon—who in McCarthy days had been loud in his attacks on State Department men for the "loss of China"—was president. There seemed even less hope of carrying out her wish. Our son Bob and I scattered her ashes on a high and distant peak in California's Sierra Nevada. As Grace would have liked, it was a spot with a magnificent view. The very next year, thanks to the same President Nixon, the door to China was opened for Americans, and I was able to return to Chungking. But there would have been no point in having the ashes with me. After foreigners had to leave China in 1949, there had been no one to 'Tam for the spot." The grave and cemetery had disappeared (see chapter 6, note 3).

more than two months and met scores of old friends. It was especially good to renew contacts with Chinese we had known but not seen for many years. One day I visited our old Chinese house, which we had remodeled so many years before. It had since been sold to Chinese owners and had now reverted to being a wholly Chinese establishment.

There were many good changes in Chengtu. The West China Union University, whose beginnings we bad watched, was inspiring with its busy students, many of them women, and its progressive and well-planned curricula. Electricity, roads, motor cars, and radios were common, though Chengtu as yet is not quite as far along as Chungking in adapting these new things to its needs.^[6]

Because unusually low water on the Yangtze had stopped ship traffic between Chungking and Ichang, I stayed in Chengtu until late February of 1937. The flight from Chungking to Chengtu had been exciting because we accomplished in one hour what used to take ten days of strenuous travel by sedan chair. We had flown low, so all the details of the earth below were constantly and clearly visible. The pilot—the same who had flown Jack from Kunming to Shanghai in 1935—kept me informed about what we were seeing. There was too much of interest for me to sit back and relax in my comfortable seat.

On the return trip from Chengtu to Chungking, I enjoyed the new and magnificent thrill of entering an ethereal realm. We flew mostly above clouds and into the eye of the morning. Surely, as we flew above the earth's cloud covering, John on Patmos never saw more of the glories of Heaven than lay near us to the south. We beheld huge turrets and towers of creamy clouds massed where they caught the brightness of the rising sun. Opalescent colors lit the snowy peaks as the golden light poured through the vast spaces of Heaven, while below lay a fleecy cloud mantle covering everything mundane. Just as I began to wonder how we could find our port or even make a landing, our pilot guided the plane down through a rift in the clouds. We were above the Yangtze only a few miles from Chungking.

Low water kept me in Chungking much longer than I had planned. I did not reach Shanghai until early May. Then I went on by rail to Peking, stopping for a few days in Nanking—which I had not visited since we lived there briefly in 1912. Finally, it was a joy to be back in Peking with Jack's family and Dick, and to be able to welcome the precious little grandson, a new Bob Service, who had been born in February while I was in Chengtu.

[6] Grace's diary mentions another change in Chengtu: rickshas had replaced sedan chairs. One effect was to make it much easier for Grace to get around and visit her old friends.