Story Corner
At the heart of every story is a desire to share. Stories open a window for exploring the lived experience of another person. They connect us to each other — across generations and beyond borders.
Discover some of the stories from our community we have compiled here at the intersection of Chinese and American cultures and people. We invite you to join our community in celebrating the lifechanging moments that motivate us to discover and understand those who are unlike us.
Estelle Mae Bell
As Troop 56 of the Girl Scouts of Connecticut proceeded to pitch tents and gather water during an overnight outing, a copperhead approached. The troop leader saw it and killed it, and resumed her supervision of the camp. The troop leader was Estelle Mae Bell Fields.
Estelle Mae Bell Fields was born in 1924 in New Orleans to Agnes and Joseph Bell, growing up in a community of mixed races, where if one was not of English descent, one was considered a person of color. Her father, who was from Guangdong, was known in New Orleans as Papa Su, and he became a beloved hero after saving lives from a horrific granary fire in the 1930s. Estelle’s mother was descendent from a line of placées, or women of color who married wealthy men as secondary wives.
For her whole life, whether in New Orleans, Groton in Connecticut, or North Haven, Estelle was a veritable force in her community. Although she did not finish high school, she skipped two grades in grammar school; but had to drop out at the end of 8th grade to work to help support her family. During her early years, her family would hand out food from the back door to the less fortunate, oftentimes leaving them very little to eat themselves.
She encouraged all her children to excel and pursue the best education possible. Two of her daughters and granddaughter went to the demonstration for black women’s rights in Philadelphia. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, another daughter provoked controversy by demanding the flag at her school be set at half-mast, and another daughter in the 1970s was arrested for a library takeover demanding the rights for fair treatment of blacks at the University of Connecticut. Throughout these moments of personal growth through civic engagement, Estelle advocated for her daughters’ leadership.
Estelle was generous, steadfast, and full of conviction, and she led her family by example to be compassionate and caring members of their communities.
Franklin and Shwen Dji Yu Ho
The first time that young Franklin Ho met his future wife, he was a library aide at Pomona College, where he graduated in 1922. He was dispatched to escort an incoming student named Shwen Dji Yu from a ship docked in Los Angeles. The dean of women at Pomona was concerned that Shwen Dji’s English was not yet proficient enough to navigate her way to the college campus. She did not know that Shwen Dji received her secondary education in missionary schools in China. Not only was her English proficient, she had brought to the United States what would be a lifelong love for music, born of the hymns sung in church services at her school in Nanjing.
When the couple moved to New York, Shwen Dji took her daughter to hear the Messiah – a familiar work of art from her upbringing in China – every Christmas at Riverside Church. Her daughter became captivated by the operatic voice. Shwen Dji developed a life-long interest in opera by listening to the Saturday radio broadcast of the Met Opera with her daughter while she ironed the laundry and her daughter did her homework.
Shwen Dji and Franklin Ho were an unusual Chinese couple within their social circles in America in that, while they were very proud of being Chinese, they upheld Christian-Confucian values that influenced the artwork they appreciated, the food they ate, and the lessons they taught their children. The Ho family warmly welcomed non-Chinese guests throughout their time in New York and New Haven.
Franklin was one of the few Chinese-Americans to receive tenure in the United States. He had made notable contributions to the development of modern economic policies in China and the narrative of prominent Chinese leaders from the Republican era (1911-1949)—a major oral history collection that is now housed at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. When he began teaching at Columbia, he moved his family from New York to New Haven, emphasizing the need to be part of this country rather than part of a large community of Chinese immigrants in New York. The warm embrace of the greater New Haven community from his earlier years as a PhD student at Yale assured Franklin that the move would be ideal for Franklin and Shwen Dji to raise the family.
Today, Franklin and Shwen Dji’s children identify with John Adams’ vision of the opportunities for enlightenment each successive generation enjoys in a new century:
I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce, and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine. (May 12, 1780, letter to Abigail Adams)
Franklin and Shwen Dji’s six grandchildren each pursued their passions as a jazz musician, a ceramicist, a curator, a writer, a non-profit leader, and an extreme sports athlete. Franklin and Shwen Dji’s early choices led the Ho family toward a future where opportunities were limitless and dreams attainable.
Mary C. Hu
When Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Chengdu, like many other prominent cities in China, became a place of great social and political upheaval. Local party officials established headquarters in the Hu family compound. Mary’s husband, Ian Hu, had just left China to study at Columbia University on a fellowship in oral surgery. Because of the political instability, Mary’s family advised that “anyone with an out, should go.” With a basket in one hand and a year-old baby in the other, Mary fled Chengdu, relying on friends, strangers, and luck to escape the perils of the revolution. After traveling for four months across 2,000 kilometers, Mary and her daughter, Nikki, found refuge in Taiwan. It wasn’t until 1955 that Mary and little Nikki were reunited with Ian in New York.
Mary C. Hu faced her hardships with courage and perseverance. When she was finally able to resume a more stable lifestyle, after a six-year separation from her husband, Mary turned her attention to cultivating a strong Chinese community. In addition to raising her three children, traveling, and working at the Lipton Tea Company, Mary was the respected matriarch in a community that included clientele of Ian’s private dentistry practice, Chinese academics, and other professional acquaintances. She hosted weekend mahjong parties, inviting new Chinese immigrants to come and become acquainted with one another. At these parties, Mary always wore the most elegant of cheongsams (a form-fitting style of dress that was fashionable in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1920s), which she had tailor-made in Hong Kong.
Mary celebrated her 90th birthday in 2011. Her three grandsons still remember their favorite meals (dumplings, meatballs, soybeans, and noodles) made by “Popo,” which Mary always prepared when her grandsons visited her in New Jersey. Her life spanned dramatic changes, and she survived many hardships with tenacity and grace. Throughout her life, she honored the traditions of early 20th century Chengdu. Mary passed away peacefully in 2013. Her descendants honor her bravery, and they do not forget how the perseverance of a single person transformed the future of her family and enriched an entire community.
Clara Shen
On July 27, 2012, Clara Shen turned 100 years old. She had four children, six grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. When the extended family gathered every year by a lake in Maine, they listened to stories that “Gma” or “GGma” told about her life: her childhood in Oregon, the “perfect” Cantonese she picked up from her father’s business associates in his dry-goods store, modeling for magazines and poster art, lessons from her brief career as a concert pianist, teaching piano in Hamden during the later years of her life, perusing shops in Maine for exceptional Chinese antiques, and many other remarkable tales. A favorite story was when Clara gave a piano recital at Yale University’s Sprague Hall and, while pedaling, her heel was caught in a dent previously made by a cello’s endpin.
Clara was born in Portland, Oregon, and began her concert piano career at the age of four, regularly performing live radio broadcasts—a “Chinese” sensation within the local community. So important was music to Clara that when she was nine years old, her family shipped her piano from Portland to Shanghai when her father moved his business there in 1922. Things didn’t work out as planned, and the family returned to Portland after several months—with the piano.
After Clara’s father died when she was thirteen, time for studying piano quickly faded away, though it was not long before a new chapter in her life began. At the age of seventeen, during a visit to Chicago, she was swept off her feet by the son of a wealthy merchant, and before she knew it she was married and living in Hong Kong. The next eleven years were steeped in Hong Kong high society, the rites of filial piety, her in-laws’ Toisan dialect, and motherhood.
By 1940, with both her marriage and Hong Kong’s political situation collapsing, Clara escaped to the United States with her two daughters to start again. It was only after she had remarried and settled down in Hamden that Clara resumed her studies as a pianist, culminating in her debut at New York’s illustrious Town Hall in 1947. Feeling pressure to prioritize raising her children, however, she directed her musical talents away from professional performance and into social life—teaching piano, playing chamber music, and serving as a trustee of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra—and into three generations of her family.
Today, Clara’s legacy lives on in her family and her friends as they remember her music and her stories, and continue to be inspired by her fortitude.
James and Charlotte Williams
James W. Williams was a Yale graduate of the class of 1908. He was a man of faith—a quality confirmed by his devotion to his wife and four children, his lifelong commitment to education exhibited through his career in teaching others in all matters of life, and the pursuit of his own erudition and curiosity. After earning a master’s degree in biology from Trinity College in 1915, he moved his young family with two toddlers to Changsha—a city in central China unknown to most outsiders beyond the Yale graduates who had established a preparatory school and Western hospital and medical school. This was the Yale-in-China campus, where he spent six years teaching biology to pre-medical and medical students.
During those six years, his wife, Charlotte, found herself in an adventure of her own, raising a family in a Chinese community. She was expected to provide meals but didn’t know the names of the food she was using; to take care of her five children (one of whom died at six days and another who required a multi-day train ride to see healthcare specialists); and to work with women who had bound feet. She accepted the move to China neither as a golden opportunity nor as a burden, and this stoicism allowed her to persevere, perhaps opening her mind to appreciate a vastly different value system. Charlotte’s deep respect for a culture unlike her own shaped the legacy of the Williams family.
The children and grandchildren of James and Charlotte Williams grew up in a household where rice was served, handmade dynastic silks and embroidery were treasured, and Chinese culture was honored. The Williams flourished in both China and the United States because they did not allow cultural differences to blind them to the humanity in others.
King-lui and Vivian Wu
The main room of a house on Prospect Street is spacious and well-lit with stone tiling and a hidden drain in the middle of the floor. This particular space at the center of the home, which may appear to be a living room in any other household, was conceived as an indoor garden. Single rooms extend from this main room, encircling the main room like petals around a pistil, and each room is fully lit by natural sunlight afforded by giant, two-pane skylights and windows. There are no hallways, and no two rooms are alike. This was the residence of King-lui and Vivian Wu.
In 1978 after 10 years of owning a plot of land that was meant to bear their home, King-lui and Vivian finally had the means to design and construct their ideal home. “I let him do everything because he would only have one opportunity to build it his way,” said Vivian.
King-lui met Vivian when she first arrived in New Haven as a student at the Yale School of Architecture. The two married after two years and began building their future together as a true partnership that is still remembered by students and friends today. Vivian led her family of three children as a devoted mother, educating them with an open mind, likely influenced by her own liberal education at several universities such as Chung Chi College in Hong Kong, Cornell, and Yale. King-lui, an architect and professor, was dedicated to his work, though he always found time to spend with his family. Each attended to his and her own sphere with utmost perfection and dedication. Vivian describes their relationship as a neiren-waizi (内人-外子) partnership, where traditionally, a woman cares for the household and the husband works as the breadwinner—each equally important.
While seemingly separate, their strong partnership functioned with subtle communication. When it came time to build their house on Prospect Street, Vivian anticipated her husband’s yearning to realize a vision he had for his home, and she refrained from voicing any suggestions. King-lui solicited her opinion anyway, and Vivian made two comments: “I do not like corridors, and the atmosphere should change from one room to another.” The result was a house constructed in the style of King-lui Wu’s artistry, but inspired by these two characteristic elements put forward by Vivian. Whether great or small, every task was completed with care and consideration by husband and wife, and today, the remnants of their partnership still stand on Prospect Street.