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

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

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

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-

[Full Size]

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

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]