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Ruth Earnshaw Lo

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Ruth Earnshaw Lo
The face of a smiling white woman with dark hair in a wavy short cut.
Ruth Earnshaw Lo, from a 1938 newspaper.
Born
Ruth Catherine Ethel Earnshaw

October 12, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
DiedJanuary 12, 2006
Boulder, Colorado, United States
Other namesXia Luteh, H'sia Lu-te
Occupation(s)Educator, writer
Notable workIn the Eye of the Typhoon (1980)
SpouseDr Lo Chuanfang
RelativesMalinda Lo (granddaughter)

Ruth Earnshaw Lo (October 12, 1910 – January 12, 2006) was an American educator in China. She wrote about her experiences in In the Eye of the Typhoon (1980).

Early life

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Ruth Catherine Ethel Earnshaw was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Col. Arthur Chester Earnshaw and Ethel Kirk Earnshaw.[1] Her father was a military officer;[2][3] her mother was born in England. She was raised in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.[4] She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1931,[5] with further studies at Columbia University.[6] She traveled to China in 1936, assisting Yale professor George A. Kennedy and studying Chinese.[7]

Career

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Lo taught English literature and composition at Huachung University from 1937 to 1953,[1][8] and at Zhongshan University from 1953. Her husband also taught at both schools.[9] She left China in 1978.[10]

Lo's letters to her parents in Pennsylvania told of Japanese bombings in China in 1938,[1][11] and about rescuing an American pilot in 1942.[12] In 1939, she made a perilous journey home to Scranton, spoke about her experiences in person through 1940,[6][13][14] and had an eventful journal back to China in 1941.[15] She was back in the United States from 1944 to 1946, with her young daughter.[16][17] The Century Club of Scranton collected food and clothing for Lo to distribute to children in China.[18]

Lo wrote about her family's life during the Cultural Revolution in In the Eye of the Typhoon (1980, with Katharine S. Kinderman).[19][20] A review in The New York Times called it "an important book that should be read by those who wish to understand the real China and the role that foreigners can play in it."[21] She toured and gave lectures in the United States after the book's publication.[22]

Personal life

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Ruth Earnshaw met Lo Chuanfang (John C. F. Lo) at the University of Chicago; they married in 1937. They had two children, son Mingteh (Kirk) and daughter Tientung (Catherine). Lo was widowed when her husband died in 1969, and she died in 2006, aged 95 years, in Boulder, Colorado. A memoir of her time at Huachung is in the Yale Divinity School Library collection.[23] Her brother-in-law Chuan-Hua Gershom Lowe's papers are at Rice University.[24]

Her granddaughter is writer Malinda Lo,[25] who dedicated her novel Ash (2009) to the memory of Ruth Earnshaw Lo.[26]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Safe in War-Torn China, Daughter informs Earnshaw". Scrantonian Tribune. 1938-12-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Pollock, Edwin Taylor; Bloomhardt, Paul Frederick (1919). The Hatchet of the United States Ship "George Washington,". J. J. Little & Ives Company. p. 254.
  3. ^ Official List of Officers of the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Army of the United States ... August 31, 1919. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1920. p. 3.
  4. ^ "Four Who Met in India-China Theater Have Reunion in City". The Tribune. 1945-02-05. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Deaths". University of Chicago Magazine. 98. April 2006.
  6. ^ a b "Century Club Notes". Scrantonian Tribune. 1939-11-26. p. 22. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "Guest at Chinese Party Talks About Her Tour". The Times-Tribune. 1936-10-19. p. 14. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "China's War Described to Woman's Club". Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, The Evening News. 1940-02-14. p. 13. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Daughter of Scranton Couple Shares China Writing Honors". The Times-Tribune. 1944-01-04. p. 12. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Lo, Ruth Earnshaw (1981-01-01). "Opinion: China's Damaged Youth". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  11. ^ "Scranton Girl Flees from Hankow Peril". The Tribune. 1938-10-26. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-11-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Local Native Aids Yank Pilot in China Crash". Scrantonian Tribune. 1942-11-15. p. 11. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Scranton Girl Tells of Hiding in Field from Bombers in China as Japanese Shells Ruin Refugee Center". Scrantonian Tribune. 1939-10-08. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "China Confident of War Success, Speaker Asserts". The Wilkes-Barre Record. 1940-02-14. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Mrs. Ruth Earnshaw Lo Writes of Safe Return to Yunnan, China". Scrantonian Tribune. 1941-02-16. p. 18. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "City Woman, Daughter End Dramatic Trip". The Tribune. 1944-07-03. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "Ruth Earnshaw Lo to Speak Tuesday at Banker's Dinner". The Tribune. 1945-09-29. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Century Club Solicits Aid for Needy Chinese". The Times-Tribune. 1948-02-07. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ Lo, Ruth Earnshaw. (1980). In the eye of the typhoon. Kinderman, Katharine S. (1st ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-144374-2. OCLC 6420756.
  20. ^ Nordell, Roderick (1980-11-10). "An American recalls China's turbulent '60s". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  21. ^ Frolic, B. Michael (November 23, 1980). "An Outsider's 40 Years Inside". The New York Times. p. BR3 – via ProQuest.
  22. ^ "Ruth Earnshaw Lo Talk Scheduled". Tulare Advance-Register. 1982-01-18. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Ruth Earnshaw Lo sub-series, China Records Project Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collection, Yale University Divinity School Library.
  24. ^ Lowe, Chuan-Hua Gershom. "Guide to the Chuan-Hua Gershom Lowe, National Party, Chinese diplomat papers, 1923-1996; bulk 1940-1996 MS 588". Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO). Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  25. ^ Lo, Malinda (2017). "Forever Feminist" in Kelly Jensen, ed., Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). ISBN 9781616205867
  26. ^ Lo, Malinda (2009-09-01). Ash. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0-316-07133-8.
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