(Redmond, April 2012) — Seattleite Harriet Holbrook Smith, who served as King County Hospital’s Superintendent of Nursing and taught at the University of Washington, had adventures in revolutionary China that are only now coming to light.
Healing Romance & Revolution is a compilation of letters Miss Smith wrote in 1926 while she worked as a nurse in Changsha as China’s Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) gained power by force.
June 26, 1926
“Last year there was such a drought the rice was ruined and the whole country full of starving refugees as a result. Now it seems like there may be peril for flood.”
August 27, 1926
“One “Britisher” was captured by some Chinese and for a couple of weeks held for ransom of $75,000, which was finally reduced to $5,000 cash. After all that is no more desperate than what happened to many people in the great and glorious USA.”
December 1, 1926
“This is modern times and China is not the place it once was. We have ceased any sort of worry about the discretion of having women on the men’s side now … the thing now to disregard any sort of regulations, so we calmly (?) stand by and let them go to it.
This is history that is going on all around us for sure, and if the Chinese temperament were anything like the Russians, I could understand all about the revolution in Russia. However, the Chinese, being a naturally calm and peaceful people, do not rise or sink to the levels of their friends in the West.”
December 7, 1926
… it was impossible to look in any direction and not see them. Their inscriptions were mostly, “Down with Imperialism,” “Down with Capitalism,” “Out with Dr. Chao” “Take back our fellow students,” and the like. It seems this is a very serious form of insult; that it is hard to understand the real significance of them to the Chinese mind.
They (Chinese students) ask for … the right to attend patriotic meetings and parades. They demand the resignation of Dr. Chao, Staff Resident in Medicine, because he is imperialistic; they ask for added amahs (servants) on the women’s wards, and for increases in their allowances. They want their books and uniforms to be furnished by the hospital outside of their allowances.
The kids spent most of the day having meetings of one sort or another, leaving only enough nurses on duty to hand out a few medicines and take a few temperatures. I felt so definitely on Saturday the place is finished—it is only a matter of a few weeks until we must close.
Compiled by Miss Smith’s great niece and her husband, Carolyn and Dennis Buckmaster, the book reveals a young woman who wanted to escape “the daily routine, and the rather stupid evenings” she spent in Seattle living at home and assisting her father with his medical practice. “I wasn’t surprised to learn that my charismatic aunt was well liked and put herself in peril to protect her patients, hospital staff and friends – both Chinese and non-Chinese. However, I was stunned to learn of her romantic adventures,” says Carolyn. “She lived into her 90s and never married. We all wondered whether she’d ever experienced love or just buried herself in her work.” But letters to friends reveal some racy encounters:
“Les and I sat on the porch until after 4 in a coil of bathing suits, counting the stars, and being much more scandalous … Honestly, I don’t know why it is I get such crazy streaks now and then out here, whereas at home I more or less behave.”
“Harriet was engaged by the time she left China,” says Dennis. “She went to visit his family in Ohio and by the end of the trip the engagement was over. No one knows why. Perhaps she valued her independence and life’s purpose more than anything else.”
Online at: http://www.HealingRomanceRevolution.com
