A Missionary Couple in 1912 China

Margotlog: A Missionary Couple in 1912 China

This couple, Altie and Elmer Galt, were my husband's Iowa grandparents who came as Protestant missionaries to China in 1912. I would know almost nothing about them except that Altie kept a diary which I've been reading. The small brown book is stamped with this title: "The Missionaries Anglo-Chinese Diary, 1912."

Her name was Altie Cummings and she had married Elmer Galt. Each page of the diary is identified by a page number, the day of whatever moon of the year it was (for example the 25th of 6th Moon), the day of the week, and above that, the month and year--all this in English. Then to the right is a message in Chinese, which, of course, I can't read. Each small page has room for two entries.

On August 12, 1912Wednesday, she writes, "I wash up and put away the last of Arthur's dear little clothes." Arthur was their first child. "Such a strange lonesome day," she writes on Sunday, August 4th. "Went to church again first time for three weeks"

Baby Arthur had celebrated his first birthday on July 28th, a Sunday.  "The dear laddie's birthday," she wrote. 'Such a precious treasure all year. If he only could be well today..just about the same, but every day no better; of course is really worse."

Her honesty and forthrightness astonish me. There is sadness and unclouded observation at the same time. "In the night baby had very hard time--vomiting and gagging. Sent for Dr. Love. They both [she means the doctor and his wife] came at 2:30 a.m. and stayed most of time until 2:30 p.m. Forenoon he seemed no worse than Sunday in spite of hard night, took new food, beef extract. By three o'clock began to get worse again--so hard. Dr. and Mrs. Love came at 8:00 p.m. to spend night. I go to bed at 11:00 but do not sleep - very hard night."

They tried many things to rouse and comfort the baby. "At 8:30 a.m.," she writes, "he finally drops into a natural sleep, and at 9:30 he quietly passed away--My baby!"

Journal writing, like letter writing, opens doors to everyday life. Altie's straight-forward, tender style, touches on sadness and joy with the same gentle frankness. Reading it gives me as much pleasure as fiction. But the experience is different. She is writing for herself (and perhaps her husband, even the future, though she shows no sign in her style of such awareness). Everything is lively and sincere, unclouded by uncertainty. She does not imagine that anyone could question her right to speak on the page. Perhaps this comes from whatever "calling" brought the couple to mission work. But her accounts are not strickly religious. Instead, they recount the pleasure of visitors--and there are many. Some are Chinese, many with Anglo names whom I suspect are single women from the United States who answered a "call" to carry God's word to foreign shores.

Yet, there's little "religiousity" in her accounts. She writes of visitors, of church services and the people she enjoys encountering there. She identifies her Chinese servants. I sense that she does not treat them as equals, which does not at all mean that she is harsh or insensitive to them. Rather, that they belong to another society, and social class within her world. This reminds me also of Eudora Welty's characters in her charming novel Delta Wedding. The year is not that different from Alti's 1912. The household in the state of Mississippi's Yazoo Delta teams with children and Negro servants, almost all referred to by their first names or nicknames--Bitsy, Howard, Roxie. Altie mentions the names of her Chinese servants, but I can't tell if they are what we'd call "first names," or something else. This is perhaps the only time my lack of knowledge about Chinese society inpedes my appreciation of her writing.

For the most part, Alti's life centers around her house and baby, this first year of his life, She is bolstered and encouraged by many enjoyable encounters with other women--ministers' wives, women missionaries, and travelers who stop to visit. It is a society segregated by gender, at least in her diary. The greatest pleasure in reading the diary comes from the amazing transparency and liveliness of her style. She is an unaffected writer who can create with a few strokes of the pen a scene, a mood, an assessment.

On Saturday, the 25th of May, she wrote: "Strawberry Shortcake! a few berries with ice cream two or three times before--from now on plentiful. Chiang NaiNai here fitting a new cover on my parasol. I also have gotten my blue grasscloth dress fitted." There is so much vivid description and intense pleasure conveyed in six handwritten lines.