Fig.6 - The Six that went to China with Sr. Walz and Fr. Clougherty After school closed in June, we six chosen Sisters gathered at St. Benedicts to prepare for our new Apostalate, and on August 3, we left the Motherhouse. I have many memories of our long voyage across the Pacific ont eh Maiden Voyage of the sumpious Empress of Japan. It was a perfect crossing until we left Japan on a small freighter, the Karsien Maru, and proceeded on our way to Tientsin our port of landing in China. Then we ran into a typhoon, and for the first time in my life, I was almost literally "scared to death". But the Lord was with us, and we reached Tientsin safely on September 24, 1930. We stayed overnight in one of the hospitable convents, the Fransiscan Missionaires of Mary, and the next day went on to Peking, our destination. We arrived just at noon and found a car waiting to take us to our new home where a delicious dinner was waiting to welcom us, thanks to the Benedictine Fathers of Fu Jen Catholic University.

What shall I say about the half-century in China? The years were grace-filled, work-filled, fun-filled. The Mission History will give the facts and details of those marvelous years when we new missionairies were ready to set the Orient on fire with Christian faith and hope and love. Even though results might not be visible, that did not dampen our spirits and zeal. The first hurdle we encountered was the learning of the very difficult Chinese language. We all went at it with staunch courage, undaunted by the thousands of strange hieroglyphics that we had to learn to recognize, remember, and then haltingly use. We spent the first year in very diligent study and seemed to accomplish a lot. In the second year, 1932 we slackened our speed a good bit, as we were becoming somewhat weary. Although the language was easy enough to memorize but very hard to use. Besides we were busy preparing to open the Fu Jen Girls High School and that took a lot of time. In september 1932, we opened the school in a lovely old palace, the Kun Wan Fu. There we conducted a boarding school for upper class girls. I taught several classes of English and did prefecting and gave private doctrine classes, together with counseling. We were all very busy and very happy there.

Fig.7 - First students of Fu Jen Girls High School. Kun Wan Fu had a most beautiful campus with many picturesque Chinese style buildings, green lawns, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, an orchard with persimmons, dates, walnuts, even a fairly large artificial pond. One court was completely carpeted with deep purple violets. Dallias of every conceivable color stretched along the hedge. All sorts of roses and great beds of pansies made the whole garden a veritable fairy land. We Sisters and our girls loved the school where we spent three precious years. But in 1934 there was a change in administration at the Catholic Univeristy and it changed our lives, for the Benedictine Fathers left and the Fathers of the Divine Word took over. We were invited to stay on, but we felt the Fathers would prefer the Holy Spirit Sisters with whom they often cooperated, therefore after our first class was graduated, we decided to leave. It was with deep sorrow that we left our beloved Girl's School and much loved Peking. We could see the Hand of God in it all, as our Community was unable to assume responsibilty for the proposed Women's section of Fu Jen Univeristy.