This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the first oral history interview of Miss Eleanor Ruth Elliott (CN 187, #T1) in the archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words which were recorded are omitted except for some Chinese phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. In a very few cases, the transcribers could not understand what was said, in which case "[unclear]' was inserted. Also, grunts, verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. Readers of this transcript should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and even rule than written English. Also, if the speaker used an older version of a Chinese name, such as Peking" instead of "Beijing," then it is the older version which is in the transcript.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
() Word in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[] Words in brackets are comments made by the transcriber.
Nothing recorded has been omitted, In a very few cases, words were too unclear to be distinguished, in which cases the word "[unclear]" was inserted. This is a transcription of spoken English, which of course follows a different rhythm and rule than spoken English.
Chinese names are spelled in the old or new transliteration according to how the speaker prononuced the word. Thus "Peking" is used instead of "Beijing" if the speaker said "Peiking".
This transcription was by Virginia Morris and Robert Shuster and was completed March 25, 1988.
Collection 187, Tape #T1; Interview of Eleanor Ruth Elliott by Robert Shuster, October 4, 1981.
[Unintelligible sounds--tape running at fast speed]
SHUSTER: This is an interview with Mrs....
ELLIOTT: Miss.
SHUSTER: ...[laughs] Miss Eleanor Ruth Elliott and Robert Shuster for the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. This interview took place at the Billy Graham Center on October the 4th, 1981, at 2:30 p.m. Miss Elliott, why don't we start with some description of your family background. You were born in Indianapolis, were you not?
ELLIOTT: Yes, I was.
SHUSTER: Was your family living there, or on furlough?
ELLIOTT: It was my father's home, and he left there when they went to China, ...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and they had one term in China before I was born, and I was born on furlough. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: Were you the oldest child?
ELLIOTT: No, they had three children born in China. No, my oldest brother was born before they left in California, before they left to go to China, and then they had two children in China, and then when they came home on furlough I was born. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: So, two sisters and a brother.
ELLIOTT: All together, there were six of us.
SHUSTER: Oh, oh.
ELLIOTT: And my, my oldest brother, and then the two children with one brother and then my older sister, and then I, and then they were delayed at home because my mother's health wasn't too good, and then my younger sister was born just before we left to return to China.
SHUSTER: And what were your brothers and sisters names?
ELLIOTT: Curtis. And we called...the second one was Walter, but I mean we call him Walter now, but Mother's, Father's name was Walter, and so we called him Nathan, Walter Nathan Elliott, and we called him Nathan. And then Margaret, and then...[noise on tape]
SHUSTER: What mission [interference on tape]
ELLIOTT: They were with the American Bible Society.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And so my father was in charge of getting colporteurs and they shipped Bibles from Shanghai to Hunan, and then he supervised all southeast...southwest China and division of and sale of Bibles by these colporteurs.
SHUSTER: So that involved traveling through China, and ...?
ELLIOTT: Yes, he he was traveling most of the time.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And we lived in Changsha, and but he would come home. And then they had bought a home up in Kuling, up in the mountain resort, and we would go up there because it didn't matter to him; he had to travel all over the south of China, so whether we were in Changsha or in Kuling didn't matter as far as his ability to come to be with us and visit with us, and Kuling is so beautiful. It's in Kiangsi province, and its up in the mountains. In Changsha it's very hot and humid in the summer, and so he felt that for our health we should go up there to our home up in Kuling.
SHUSTER: How do you spell those two names: Changsha and Kuling?
ELLIOTT: C H A N G S H A. That's in H U A...H U N A N, Hunan.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And then Kuling, K U L I N G.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: K I A N G S I.
SHUSTER: That's where you later taught school.
ELLIOTT: Yes. And later up there and at school age.... My, well, my oldest brother went to Shanghai American School because there wasn't any school for him there in Changsha. And then when we worked in Kuling they started a school up there and both my second brother went there, and then Margaret and Frances and I all went to Kuling American School.
SHUSTER: And that took you all the way up through high school?
ELLIOTT: No, because we came home on furlough, and then my father...we were in California, in Claremont, California, in southern southern California,...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...lovely place. They had missionary homes there for people who came home. But then my father was asked to go to France to supervise ( with the YMCA) to supervise the Chinese who had been brought in after World War [pauses] I...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...to fix up the buildings that had been bombed and ruined in France. And they were...they didn't have anybody who could speak Chinese to help to understand. And they were having difficulty with them. So my father went over, and he spent three years there, with them, and we stayed on in Claremont.
SHUSTER: Now that.... He was still with the American Bible Society?
ELLIOTT: No, he was sent out by the YMCA.
SHUSTER: So he left the Bible Society.
ELLIOTT: He left the Bible Society then, yes. And then but later he went back again, and it was all right as far as the American Bible Society went, but we were then...then when they went back they left us with my aunt, his sister, Rose Elliott. And she was very gifted teacher and she was a stenographer and she was...and so she helped us a great deal with our school work and then we moved to Long Beach and we, I went to the Long Beach Poly High there and after that I went to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and ....
SHUSTER: And then to Wheaton.
ELLIOTT: Yes. I took the music course at BIOLA, and that was a very good course. And then I went to Wheaton.
SHUSTER: Going back to your your childhood in China, how old were you when you left China as a child?
ELLIOTT: Nine.
SHUSTER: Nine. Do you remember much of your early years?
ELLIOTT: Well, I was surprised how, when I went back as a missionary, how much I did remember. And the things that I felt were perfectly normal, the girls who were in language school in Yangchow would just gasp, you know, and I thought, "Why, of course, that's the correct way." [Laughs]
SHUSTER: Did you did you remember any Chinese, or the language?
ELLIOTT: On the way, on the ship, one of the Chinese who was returning asked me if I remembered, and I said, "Oh, yes, the only thing I remeber is [in Chinese-]"
SHUSTER: That's it?
ELLIOTT: ...That was, that was the beggar's cry that we heard on the streets.
SHUSTER: That corresponds with something ...?
ELLIOTT: It's the "Gentlemen, elderly gentlemen, kind, elderly Ladies, please give me a little, one little piec...bit of money." [Laughs] And but the thing that I felt was helpful when I was in language school was that the idiom didn't seem a bit [tape warped] queer to me, whereas to the other girls, who hadn't been brought up in China, it sounded very queer. But I thought, "Well, that's the only way to say it!" But we had our language schooling in Yangchow, in Jiansu province, which is where Shanghai is, and they have a very clear, crisp way of speaking that is not the usual, and so when you go further up country, everything that they say there has sort of like the sound of "ah" on the end of it, and it's very crisp[?], you know. So that I didn't feel that that was the way that I wanted to learn to speak Chinese.
SHUSTER: Su...well, it's any major language, I suppose, it's all different dialects?
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: When your father was working for the American Bible Society as during your childhood, you mentioned that he recruited colporteurs for the various sections. How did he go about recruiting them? Do you recall anything of that?
ELLIOTT: Well, he he went to the Chinese church and first, and then he asked if they knew of anybody else, and and then they just...and then he went up to through different mission groups, he wrote letters to them and asked if they knew of any men who would like to do this, and they were paid according to the number of Bibles they sold. And I can remember that he would get from Shanghai.... It would take weeks and weeks for these great big boxes to come, filled with Bibles. And so then he would find out, he'd keep in touch with these different men, and they would say, "I need 400, or I need 2000," or whatever, and then he would travel and take the Bibles to them. And he also took lots of tracts. And when when my father used to go out and sell Bibles too, and we'd go with him, and he'd give us the tracts to give out, and we loved to give out tracts, and the Chinese always liked to get them. And my father usually had the kind that have a picture, and the Chinese would take that and every time they would paste it on their wall inside the door because they just loved pictures and they loved Chinese characters, and it was something that they enjoyed. He'd go on trips. Sometimes he'd have to go by sailboat; sometimes he'd have to go by household junk (they called that a junk; it was big, nice), and one time we went on a trip with him up the Shiang[?] River, and oh, it was lovely. We just enjoyed that trip. The only thing that was sad was that coming back there was a terrible flood, and we saw people who were on little improvised rafts, and I can remember how I was just watching, and then all of a sudden they just disappeared. And I cried, and I said to Mother, "Oh, Mother, they've gone, they've gone." And she said, "Yes, dear. They've gone, and we trust..."
SHUSTER: And you weren't able to help them, ?
ELLIOTT: They were clear over. Anybody that was near us, yes. The the men would reach out their oars, and they would grab the oars. But this was so wide; it must have been oh, at least two miles across. And we could see them, and we were out of the swiftest part of the current; we didn't...the men wouldn't want to be in that; it was going so fast. And I remember we saw one little boy who was riding on a water buffalo, and they both disappeard. And, oh, that was one of the sad things we saw as children.
SHUSTER: Did your father go very deep up country, or was it mainly staying with the...? Into the very rural areas...or was it mainly the more urban...?
ELLIOTT: Oh, it was the rural areas that he tried to reach. The cities were being reached, and so he went to the rural areas.
SHUSTER: Did he go to places where there already was a church, or did he go into brand, new unevangelized areas?
ELLIOTT: Unevangelized areas was where he asked the men to go. And he supervised them. They were connected with a home church, but then they would go out to the areas around, and so he was reaching out to people. And they all loved...anybody who could read loved to get something new to read. And they felt that it was an honor for them to show that they could read anything. And then when they got that, why, the found they thought it was just wonderful. And then these men would explain the way of salvation to them and give them the tracts.
SHUSTER: You say "when they got that", you mean when they got the Bible?
ELLIOTT: When they got the Bible, yes. So there were really thousands and thousands of Bibles sold all over south China, not just in Hunan province, but in in Jiangsh...well, Jiangshi, but also Guangshi [sp?] and a little tip of Yunnan, but not very far into Yunnan; my father didn't go far into...but all through south of the Yangtze River was practically all his portion.
SHUSTER: Now when your father and his coworkers went into areas where there were no church, was unevangelized, and they started selling Bibles, was there any kind of follow-up by any...if they started...if they...
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: ...if people were converted in an area, what was the next step?
ELLIOTT: Then these men, his colporteurs, were...he told them to get in touch with the nearest church and tell them, and so then they would go out and try to make it what we called an outstation, and they would seek to reach that. Now I'm not too I wouldn't say I know in detail all of what my father did because I was young and didn't.... We learned to speak Chinese because we had Chinese servants. When you live in a house that has no running water, no electricity and, you know, you have to have servants. And so and we had what Mother called "the amah" who looked after us children, and so the amah could only speak Chinese so of course we we spoke Chinese.
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: And so...
SHUSTER: Did you ...Your home was in Changsha [hesitancy] Shangcha ?
ELLIOTT: In in Changsha.
SHUSTER: Changsha.
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: Was...Were you the only Westerners there? Or was there...
ELLIOTT: Oh, no. That was quite a big city. That was where Yale ...
SHUSTER: Oh, Yale in China.
ELLIOTT: ...University had Yale in China. And also there was a large Presbyterian work. My mother was a doctor, and my father was a Presbyterian minister, and so my mother worked with the Presbyterian clinic every day that she could. And if we weren't taking her [Laughs] attention too much, why then...but she she had regular days that she went and then if she had other time, she would give other time too to help with that.
SHUSTER: What kind of, what kind of work did she do? Just anything any problems the people needed? Or was she a specialist, a surgeon or a ...?
ELLIOTT: She wasn't a surgeon, no. She, she was medical.
SHUSTER: Just general practice, in other words.
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: Whatever, whatever was the problem.
ELLIOTT: Right.
SHUSTER: What ...?
ELLIOTT: But of course she did...when somebody comes in with a great big boil, which is...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...why, she can open that up, and things like that, but she wasn't a a surgeon.
SHUSTER: What ...Do you recall anything of the major kind of medical problems that the people in that area had? What especially...
ELLIOTT: Well...
SHUSTER: ...stays in your mind that your mother was working on?
ELLIOTT: Well, it was usually things like dysentary and things that were things that were caused by uncleanliness in preparing food and because they didn't know very much about washing their hands before they cooked and you know, things like that, and they didn't.... And they would take a dirty towel to wipe off the dishes and things like that. And so as a result there was quite a lot of of different kinds of diseases as a result of eating that kind of food. It was mostly, I think, that, and then just boils and things like that that were probably also a result of of uncleanliness.
SHUSTER: Who came to the clinic, to the hospital?
ELLIOTT: Oh, anybody who wanted to come was free to come. They just came and sat in line.
SHUSTER: Were there other hospital facilities in the city, or was this the major medical facility for the area?
ELLIOTT: The Presbyterian hospital was the only hospital, and then this was the clinic connected with the hospital. If it were necessary, they were put into the hospital as patients. But my mother was working in the clinic, not in the hospital itself.
SHUSTER: What was it like to grow up as an mk [missionary's kid] in China? Who were your playmates?
ELLIOTT: Well, there was a, a little girl who lived next door to us, and we loved playing with her. And then when we were...
SHUSTER: Was she also an mk, or...?
ELLIOTT: No, no, a little Chinese girl. And she would come over and play with us and we'd go over to their house and play. But Mother was very careful to see that that house was a clean house. And but one time after...when she was about four and a half or maybe five, but I think she was only about four and a half, and I...we we were about the same age, why she didn't come out to play, and so I went over and knocked on the door and and asked her mother, why, and she said, "She doesn't feel like coming out today." And her bedroom was up on the second floor, and my bedroom was on the second floor... my sisters' bed...my two sisters, well, one sister and I, my younger sister and I had a room together, and so her bedroom and our bedroom window...we had this wall, everybody had a wall around their house, and we had a wall between, but we could call to each other if we wanted to from bedroom to bedroom. But I heard her crying and crying and crying. And and this kept on for literally night and day. And so then I went over and asked her mother, "What's the matter?" And she said, "Oh, we have to bind her feet. And so that's why she is crying, because her feet are being bound and it hurts."
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And so then we went up to Kuling and I never played with her again. But that poor child was having her feet bound. Do you know how, how, the origin, the origin of feet binding?
SHUSTER: Well, as I understand it, there was it was believed that small feet were very beautiful, and they were a sign of elegance because, of course, a peasant woman could not really afford to have her feet bound. It had to be a a more ...
ELLIOTT: True. But really it started because an emperor's daughter was born with a crippled foot. And so to make her feel that she wasn't queer-looking, her father ordered all the ladies who were in his court to bind their feet, at least one foot. No, I think she had both feet...she was born crippled in both feet. And so he made them bind their feet. And that was the way it started, and from then on all the elite bound their feet.
SHUSTER: Do you recall which emperor that was?
ELLIOTT: It wa... I don't know. I I used to know, but I'm sorry, I, I ca...but it wasn't the last emperor because...it wasn't the one under Empress Dowager, but it was before that.
SHUSTER: . Growing up as a missionary's missionary's kid in China, did you have any sense of being isolated or being different because you were a Westerner among Chinese?
ELLIOTT: No, we didn't... I didn't feel that way at all. I just thought that it was fun. We had fun with with the Americans, and with the British, and the Germans. There were in Changsha there was a German group too, and...
SHUSTER: Which mission was that?
ELLIOTT: [pause] It was a German mission. [Laughs] I'm sorry. I can't remember.
SHUSTER: Oh, that's okay.
ELLIOTT: But they had they had some sisters, you know, who were unmarried, but they also had some families, too. So I don't know what, I can't remember now the name of the mission. But...
SHUSTER: But you didn't have any feeling of being different.
ELLIOTT: Not while we were there, no. We just accepted it because everybody we knew was either Chinese or an mk, and it didn't matter. We we just...and we all spoke Chinese, and we had fun together, and so we didn't think anything of it. But my father made us very careful about with whom we would play. He wouldn't let us play with ...I'm afraid the hoi polloi, you know, because he he was careful for fear we would catch some disease from them. Mother was very careful about that. And then we, my father had swings and teeter-totters and and and then when the boys got bigger he had [pauses] poles...built...
SHUSTER: Oh, parallel bars?
ELLIOTT: ...parallel bars.
SHUSTER: Jungle gym.
ELLIOTT: Yes. And things like that for for us, and then he bought a pony for us and we went riding, so we we all had good times.
SHUSTER: What was your education like, up until when you left?
ELLIOTT: Well, at first Mother started teaching Margaret from the Calvert system in ...
SHUSTER: What's that? [Train noise in background]
ELLIOTT: Oh, the Calvert School system is in New Jersey, and they sent out--they still do, I think, all over the world for people. It's a very good system.
SHUSTER: It's for private, for at-home, or teaching children?
ELLIOTT: Teaching children at home. Yes. And lots of missionaries still use the Calvert system. It's very good. And then my grandmother in Indianapolis died, and my Aunt Rose, who was single and who had been looking after her, then .... She was an excellent teacher, she had been teaching in Indianapolis. And so my father asked her to come out and teach us. So she came out, and.... Now Mother had already started Margaret Nathan and Margaret, and Curtis had gone to to the Shanghai American School, but ma...Mother taught them for a couple of years. Then Aunt Rose came, and she was so good that in one year...well, while Margaret was learning to read, why then she would read over her little primer over and over, and I memorized it, and so I was just looking and and I would just point to words, you know, just because I had memorized it, and I'd say it. And then it suddenly dawned on me, that word is "kitten", and that word is "kitten", and I turned the page: there's "kitten", there's "kitten", there's "kitten", and then I said, "Hey, if that's the way it goes, I can say it!" And so then I would match words, and so I think I was only about four, maybe, yeah, maybe five, but not more than that...
SHUSTER: A moment of enlightenment.
ELLIOTT: ...and I, and so, then I was thrilled. Well, then when when my aunt came, she taught us phonics, so that we learned to sound out words and learned how to to attack words, and so when we went up to Kuling to go to the Kuling American School, we were av...we were...I was supposed to go into second grade, but the second grade there, because most of the American children had been taught at home, either with the Calvert system or some other, and they were all advanced, and so we...but after a while they said, "Well, we'll put you into the third grade."
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And and then when we went home, I was....
SHUSTER: That was about two years later, I guess, after you.... You were only in school for about two years?
ELLIOTT: I was only in school up there one year. And but and my aunt had taught me for one year. But I was put into the third grade, and then when I came home from from China, I was supposed to go into fourth grade, but they put me into fifth grade [noise in background] because I could do the work. [Laughs] And ...
SHUSTER: Because you had such, I guess, personalized attention, too, from your mother and aunt, that ...
ELLIOTT: Right. Yes. And any time there was any...any....
SHUSTER: ...so that you could really blossom when....
ELLIOTT: ...questions that we needed, even while we were there in the Kuling American School, when we would come home we'd say, "Aunt Rose, what does it...what does this mean?", you know. And so she'd explained it a little bit more and help us. And so even though she wasn't actually teaching us, in a sense she was. And then when we wanted to know anything we'd ask, we'd ask Mother too. Mother could explain it too. So we had excellent teachers. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: Certainly sounds like it.
ELLIOTT: Well then when we came home my brother was supposed to go into sixth grade, he went into seventh; my...no, he went into eighth; and my sister Margaret was put into fifth grade, and I was put up into fifth grade with her and then she she was kind of hurt to think that we were both in the same grade, but the teacher, the fifth grade teacher said, "It was a mistake for you to be kept here in the fifth grade." She had tried to have her put up, but, so then she said to her, "Look, Margaret. You just read these few books and then next year you'll go into seventh grade." So she did. So we all, we all went up. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: How did your mother cope with.... I imagine...your father, as you say, was away most of the time, so she was really the only parent, was how did she cope with raising the family under those conditions?
ELLIOTT: Well, I tell you she was a very gifted woman. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been able to do it. Now she believed, she said, "You do something naughty, I spank." [Laughs] So, we knew it. If we disobeyed her at all, she would spank us. And we expected it. And my father would too, when he was home. So, you don't...you're not apt to be very disobedient if you know you're going to get a spanking.
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: [Laughs] And...At first, you know, if it were just a little thing, Mother would just spank our hand, our hand, but if it was anything the least bit more than a little thing, she'd take us across her knee and she'd spank us. [Laughs] So we, we learned to obey.
SHUSTER: Did .... You mentioned this boat ride that you were taking, or a ride on a junk you were taking...
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: ...as a child, what what do you remember?
ELLIOTT: It's a house boat, and it was big. We we had, they had bunks. Now they were so wide that...well, we took our own bedding, (everyone in China, all the Americans, always take their own bedding), but...
SHUSTER: Why is that?
ELLIOTT: Because anything that we would get otherwise would be not clean. But most Chinese, the Chinese always take their own bedding, too...
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: ...and ...but we we also took our own cook, so that he could cook our food the way we are used to having it, so that we didn't have to eat entirely Chinese food there. And but we, there were one, two, three, four bunk rooms and double decker bunks, so there was plenty of room for all of us.
SHUSTER: And this was just your family...
ELLIOTT: Yes, and my aunt.
SHUSTER: ...and your servants, oh and your aunt. This was a pleasure trip, or business, or what?
ELLIOTT: Well, it was really my...my father was going up to Changde[?] to take a whole bunch of books too, and so he thought, "Well, just for the interest of going of of the children to have the experience of it," we went. And when we got to a place as we were going up through the river got narrow, I mean the and the gorge just high mountains, and in order to get up, the river was so swift coming down that the men had to climb up to the very top and had long ropes and then six or eight of them pulled that houseboat up the gorge.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And we watched and we could see them, and they all had things across them and then a rope on to the next person like that,...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and so depending on how swift, it was at least six, it took took at least si...six men to pull us up.
SHUSTER: These were local men who lived on, above...?
ELLIOTT: They were on the boat.
SHUSTER: Oh, oh.
ELLIOTT: They were the boatmen.
SHUSTER: I see. I see.
ELLIOTT: From the boat. And they would always have to...they had quite a few. On a houseboat you have to have quite a lot, because they knew that they would have to go up the gorge. And they would always have at least two left on board to be sure, one at the front and one with the, by the steering, and the rudder, by the rudder, and so then the one at the front would yell if we were getting too close to the side or if there was a whirlpool or a something coming, and he would warn, and ...so well, we thought it was exciting; we just loved it.
SHUSTER: Sounds like it.
ELLIOTT: We didn't, we didn't mind it a bit. [Laughs] I don't know how much Mother was worried, but she she didn't say anything at least to scare us, so we weren't scared. We thought it was....
SHUSTER: How long did the trip last?
ELLIOTT: I think we were gone six weeks.
SHUSTER: Did you see (not just on this trip but in your childhood), much of Chinese life, or were you pretty much and as a very young, kept close to home?
ELLIOTT: Well, we we went out and we would see Chinese life, yes. And we would go into Chinese homes, you know, the mud walled, thatch roofed homes, but we didn't stay. We would just go when my father was giving...we would give out the tracts, and then my father would explain the way of salvation to them and just and then say, "Now if you want to know anything further, why this is the place to get in touch." And he gave the name of the church, the Presbyterian church there in Changsha, or if it were further out.... We didn't go with him out further when we went to, into the homes.
SHUSTER: Did your father go door to door, or did he pick a central location and preach and you would hand out tracts, or both, or neither?
ELLIOTT: Well, we would just be going along and because we were foreigners, kids would say, "Yang gue-tze [?]"--that's "Foreign Devils"--and "Yang gue-tze lai le, Yang gue-tze lai le," and so that would call all the kids out. Well, as soon as the kids all came out, then the parents all came out. And so we'd have a crowd in no time. Just because my father took the ki...his children with him...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...why then we'd have a big crowd. Then my father would preach to them...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and then we'd give out the tracts to them. And we didn't usually go into the homes. The only homes that we went into were the homes that were right near us...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...which were wealthy families.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And but then later, of course, when I went back, went out as a missionary myself, well, then I went into all the homes, and and I loved it. I didn't mind a bit. These mud-walled, thatch-roofed homes were really a pleasure to be in, to talk with the Chinese, and...because I, I loved the Chinese, and it was a joy to be with them. So it wasn't any hardship.
SHUSTER: In Changsha you you mentioned that the kids would yell, "Foreign devils", even though I imagine that Westerners were a fairly common sight in the city. Or not, as...?
ELLIOTT: Well...
SHUSTER: Is that true or false?
ELLIOTT: ...it it was the children, you see, that were were exceptional. You see,...
SHUSTER: Oh...not the Westerners then.
ELLIOTT: ...yet the Yale, Yale had, you see, they had young fellows who came out for three years, and and they weren't married. They didn't, they didn't have families, and so American children were unusual.
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: And so there weren't very many. And the the Germans, I think there was only one family that had any children, and they were at the far end of Changsha, and Changsha was a pretty big city.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And they they were, they lived way over on the other side of Changsha from us. And so there weren't very many American children, or foreign children. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: Did you have much contact with the student teachers of Yale in China?
ELLIOTT: Oh, we called them "Uncle."
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: Every one of them, you know, we..."Uncle Don" "Uncle..." there were two, one time there were two Uncle Don's, Uncle Don Robb was one, I remember, but they were very nice to us. And then in the summer if we didn't go up to Kuling, we went up to Yingshang[?], which was to the mountain, and my father had a cabin, resort built for us up there above a a temple. He rented the land behind the temple, up up above on the hill.
SHUSTER: A Buddhist temple?
ELLIOTT: A Buddhist temple. Yes. And he had it made so that the walls would go out and have a stick holding them up. And then we just camped on the...we usually just put mats on the...mattresses on the floor, you know, and we'd blow them up and ...Mother and Dad had their own, they had a real little cottage. But for us children, this was ours. And ...
SHUSTER: And that was Ling...?
ELLIOTT: ...and we would invite, we would invite the "Uncles" to come up
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: ...if they wanted to [Interference on tape] and camp out with us.
SHUSTER: Did they come?
ELLIOTT: Oh sure [laughs]. They would come down anytime, you know. We had a good time. [Sound of microphone being knocked]. But then we also would go down to the temple. And that's where I got really acquainted with the temple worship.
SHUSTER: Hmm. Why don't you describe it?
ELLIOTT: Well, the first thing we noticed was that they had a huge bell inside, and they had a blind priest who was there who once a minute would make that big bell go "DONG!", and would...the reverberations would last almost till the next time he would go DONG!
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: But he kept that up and he was there all the time. And then when we'd go in...oh, the number of idols! You you talk about Buddhists as if, you know, they just took the read the Buddhist rea... the writings of Buddha. No, they're idol worshippers.
SHUSTER: Mmm.
ELLIOTT: And all of these idols...many of them are the idols that had a thousand arms--they called it that.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: They they would just make 'em with, you know, so that it looked like a whole lot of arms around, and then people would come in and and kneel down and always light incense and worship in front of these idols. And it would depend on...they had different idols that were supposed to grant different requests. Certain idols would help if somebody was sick, and certain idols would help if a woman hadn't had a baby and wanted one, and certain, you know, they would go to these different ones and worship. But then, but they had a lot of priests there; it was a school for priests. And so they had a lot of young priests.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And they would...we would come and we'd stand at the door (they would't let us come in), but we'd stand at the door and watch them when they had their worship service every morning.
SHUSTER: They wouldn't let you come in because you were children, or because you were Christian, or because you were Westerners, or...?
ELLIOTT: All three. [Laughs] Right. Because they didn't...But they would let us come in when they weren't having their worship service, but....
SHUSTER: This was a worship service just for the priests, or every...?
ELLIOTT: Just for the priests.
SHUSTER: What was that like?
ELLIOTT: Well, it was a a time wh...it was an instruction time as well as a worship time. But then they would always get down on their knees and always hold their hands up, you know, together...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and and then they would bow, they would get down and they would always bow three times after they were, when they made a special request. They would all get on their knees and bow three times and touch their forehead to the floor three times. And then they would mention something else, and then they would all bow again and touch their heads to the floor three times. And when when people went and wor...worshipped and offered their incense, they had a little sort of a stool that they knelt on to be able to put the incense in, and then afterward they would also bow down...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and hit their heads three times, and some of them would literally almost get b..bruised on their forehead because they said that would show that they were really earnest about their request. So.
SHUSTER: Was that all their was to the service, just the bowing, or was there any other part to it?
ELLIOTT: Oh, they chanted. They all memorized, and these young fellows had to memorize, and they had this ooh a big I don't know how many books, at least four books.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: I think they had the called the Four Sacred Books, and they had to memorize those. And they used those in their their worship, because they were training them to go and teach the people, then; when they went out they would teach them to memorize these books, and they used those in their worship in all of the temples.
SHUSTER: Do you recall what the books were?
ELLIOTT: I think they were the they were called the Four Sacred Books, if I'm not mistaken.
SHUSTER: Did you ever talk with any of these priests [background noise], the young ones or the older ones, or...?
ELLIOTT: Oh, yes. They were, they were nice to us, but they were ...now, one time Walter (Nathan) was I don't know, we had, sometimes we invited the German children up too, and they came up, and he was chasing one of them. He wasn't chasing one of us, but he was chasing one of them. And he ran down into one side--not the the temple itself, but they had rooms over at the sides on either side for the men to live--and he was running down and he ran into one of the priests. Oh, and my brother got blamed for it...
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: ...and ...
SHUSTER: Why did your brother get blamed?
ELLIOTT: Well, he...because this other boy was scared, and and he said, and he was smaller than Walter, and so he said, "Oh, it was my fault; I chased him." [Train noise in background.] And they said, "Oh, you're not going to be allowed to come back in here at all." And so for the rest of the summer (it was only about another week) he wasn't allowed, but the rest of us could come in if we behaved, and we had to be very demure and very good. We couldn't be running to go in 'cause we might bump into one of the priests. So that was....
SHUSTER: Did your father ever come down and have discussions with the priests, or they come up to talk with him, or...?
ELLIOTT: He did, but they they just said very frankly, "We don't want to discuss any religion with you. We are training young men here, and we don't want them to be confused by any other training." So they wouldn't let my father come. My father wanted to.
SHUSTER: Hmm. What about Confucian religion? Did you have any contact with that?
ELLIOTT: Well, ha...most of the people seemingly have two or three religions that they incorporate. And Confucius was supposed to have been a a scholar and and originally it wasn't supposed to have been a religion.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: So Buddhists could be Confucianists also by studying the books of Confucius. And so the that the book of Confucius is one of the four, four great classics of Chinese. And so you're, to be a real scholar you must have read at least the big book of Confucius. And but a lot of people worshipped Confucius, but along with some other other...Buddhism and they they didn't mind at all adding on to their worship, worshipping different...but they didn't say, "I am strictly a Confucianist. I am not a Buddhist." [
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: At least the ones that I knew, said, "Oh, yes. We can we can be Confucianists and Buddhists at the same time. It doesn't matter."
SHUSTER: Did your fa...?
ELLIOTT: Taoists to...also.
SHUSTER: Um hmm. Did your father or any other missionaries you know ever use Confucism or Tao or the Tao as a starting point for evangelism?
ELLIOTT: Well, I really don't know. I wasn't old enough.
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...to know, because, you see, the words that they use, it's an entirely different vocabulary from what a child uses.
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: And so I don't know what my father did about that. But I do know that when we were in language school, and then the China Inland Mission has a course of study that you must, you must take, you must pass it, and you must study what.... First, the first year you're supposed to have in your language school, you're supposed to take one year's work.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: I mean...and if you can take your first exam...
SHUSTER: This is one year in language study.
ELLIOTT: Language study. If you can take your first exam before you leave Yangchow, (or the men had their language school in Anking in Anhwei province) if you could get through your first, you're doing very well. Some of them didn't finish. I was very glad that we were able to.
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: Because I really did find that it was an advantage being an mk...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...to get through.
SHUSTER: That background.
ELLIOTT: So...but then when we went to our station we had to get a teacher right away and work like mad to pass the exams to to be ready to take the the big exam that was sent out from Shanghai to us. And you were absolutely required to pass four, and then the last two were on the special... mostly the men took the last two exams because they were on the classics. [Noise in background for above.]
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: I I really don't remember. I think I took it, but I'm not positive so I won't say for sure. But I remember studying some of them.
SHUSTER: You say most of the men took it because the Chinese expected more of the men to be scholars.?
ELLIOTT: Right. And they they would be able then to discuss with with them, the scholars, what the scholars had written. But those are very, very difficult, extremely difficult. [Train noise in background]
SHUSTER: What if you didn't pass?
ELLIOTT: Well, you just had to keep on studying until you did pass. Now there was a...I knew one young man who came out. He, he married a girl who was my roommate in Wheaton, later, but when he came out he came from Canada, and he was at the language school in Anking. [Train noise in background] And he could not, he couldn't even hear what the difference in the sounds were. And after he had been there at language school the whole year of language school, he hadn't taken any of the exams--you know, any they have the preliminary exams after you take so mu...then you're supposed to take this exam and then this exam and this exam and then finally you take the final. And he hadn't been able to at all. And he said, "I'm absolutely just no good." So he wrote home to his mother and said, "Mother, would you please get people to pray for me that I'll be able to hear the differences in the sounds." He couldn't hear the tone. You see, it's a tonal...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...language. And he couldn't hear the difference in tones. And the way you say it makes a difference in the meaning, and so...So she got a hundred people who promised to pray for him every day.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: So he had to stay on for longer time.
SHUSTER: At the school.
ELLIOTT: At the school. And it just seemed as though, almost overnight, he suddenly started to hear...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and could differentiate the sounds. And the first time I heard him preach was about four years later. I think that I could truthfully say I don't know of another foreigner who preached more clearly and with a bigger...bigger vocabulary than he. And he did just did beautifully. And the Lord wonderfully used him.
SHUSTER: Sort of reminiscent of Winston Churchill who I think continually flunked his English language courses as a boy. He said it was the best thing that ever happened to him cause he got to know the English language thoroughly by the time he was finally moved on. Were were Chinese surprised to find your mother was a doctor? Was that something that was unusual to them?
ELLIOTT: Well, I really, I really don't know whether, how they felt about her being a doctor because I just accepted it so much that it never occurred to me that anybody would think it was queer. [Laughs] But I suppose they did because it wasn't the usual thing, although they had women herb doctors. They do, they did have women herb doctors.
SHUSTER: And what did they do?
ELLIOTT: They would give .... They had Chinese herbs that are were medicinal and that did help. And they, of course, they had men herb doctors, but most of the herb doctors were women, if there were...they ...
SHUSTER: Were they, were herb doctors people who were [pauses] local people who knew a lot about herbs, were they...that was more or less their vocation full time?
ELLIOTT: Well, I think that they were the they were trained as Buddhist nuns.
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: And then as a nun then some of them became trained as herb doctors.
SHUSTER: Did you, do you remember any experience of acupuncture?
ELLIOTT: Well, we didn't Mother didn't practice that, and so we didn't have that as children at all. No. [Background noise]
SHUSTER: You never saw anything of it as a child?
ELLIOTT: No.
SHUSTER: Or knew or heard of it?
ELLIOTT: Well, we knew the word. But we didn't ever, I never saw it, never experience it so....
SHUSTER: Of course, the years that you were in China as a child was the years of the beginning of the Nationalist, Chinese Nationalist Party and ferment over Western privileges. Did you come into any contact with Chinese nationalism or anti-Western feelings as a child?
ELLIOTT: Well, I think that the that letter that I gave you of my father's st...wrote something about that. I'm not quite sure whether he ventured into it in that first letter, but I...in the second one I think maybe he might...
SHUSTER: He says here in a letter written in 1910, "Condition seems very peaceful in Hunan now. The man on the street is cordial, and in only one of the cities visited was the least discourtesy offered, and that consisted of only of a small boy pelting me in the back with a handful of rice, a chi...a boy's trick common to all lands."
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: Did you experience any kind of not just anti-Westernism or signs of Chinese nationalism?
ELLIOTT: Well, not until I came back as a a missionary.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: Well, then, there were times when it was dangerous.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And it depended on when...
SHUSTER: [unclear]
ELLIOTT: ...you know, what, where we were and what Course, what I went through, though, wasn't so much from the Chinese as when the Japanese...you see, the Japanese came. They attacked China in 1937. And in 1938 I was in Hwangchwan in Honan when the Japanese came, and we had nineteen days of fighting and bombing and and it was really a very, a time when....
SHUSTER: That must have been terrifying.
ELLIOTT: It really was. But we decided that.... There were three of, three, there were two each new young missionaries just just out from language school, and then I was there, and then Mr. Davis was in their house, but Mrs. Davis had gone up to see their daughters up at the Chefoo school, and she hadn't been able to get back because of all the war and trouble, and so he was alone in in the married couple's house, and we three were in the single ladies' house, and we had we opened the gates and said that the people who wanted to come as refugees from the Japanese could come in. Well, most of the people were running, literally running, to the west to get away, ahead of the Japanese.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: But the elderly, the ladies with little babies, well, they couldn't go. And so we said, "All right. We'll have a refugee camp for you." And so we had an American flag and a a Red Cross flag and a Chinese flag put up on the flagpole up above the church. And ...no, we put a Christian flag, and and ...
SHUSTER: But not a Chinese flag.
ELLIOTT: Yes, we did have a Chinese flag. And but...an American flag. And then we made, we girls made, we got cloth quickly and made great big American flags, and we put them across the roof of of both houses, and....
SHUSTER: So that bombers er could see it.
ELLIOTT: So that the bombers could see it, yeah. And and my, Mr. Davis dug had had the men dig big a big crooked thing like that clear across and then some big rooms underneath and then you to...we took all our stone steps and put them across the top, and ...
SHUSTER: Communication trench?
ELLIOTT: Well, no, that was for bombing.
SHUSTER: For going across.
ELLIOTT: For shelter. And so when...but most of the, most of the people who came in were women. We had 218 who came. I went around and invited all the neighbors...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and friends to come in, and some who hadn't ever come as Christians, I mean as church members at all, they weren't, they wouldn't ever come to church, but they came. And so it was really wonderful, the Lord's provision for us. I told them, you know, they had th, th, been advancing so fast that they only would stay in a place three or four days and then they'd go on.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: So I said, "Now be sure to bring in enough food for a month." And I I had, I made them sign up that they had brough food for a month. Well, the Japanese, when the first Japanese came in, [Background noise] when they finally got in after bombing and shelling and then poison gas and (you know that that gas was so bad, and we were all crowded) they all had, the women had wanted to come into our house, so a lot of them were in the basement and all over our livingroom, diningroom, hall, everywhere downstairs, and we, I looked up just a (we only had a tiny little bit of a window left--I had bricked it all up, had it all bricked up) and I saw this funny-colored gas coming, and then we were all gasping and choking, and the children were vomiting and we then we all started to vomit. And then Mr. Davis came and threw the door open and he said, "Come out. The wind has changed." And the wind had turned around and blown that gas back over onto the Japanese. And....
SHUSTER: But as a child, going back to your childhood again, you didn't having any feeling of of agitation or of anti-Western feeling. You had no kind of indication of that at all?
ELLIOTT: No. No. None at all.
SHUSTER: When you when you left China and came to the United States, you said you were nine years old?
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: Was that a difficult period of adjustment? Or was there any period of adjustment at all?
ELLIOTT: No, because the family that lived next door to us had been in China, and you see, they were missionaries, 'cause of we were lived in a a a group of missionary homes. And then there was a family, there was a retired couple who my parents had know when I was, before I was born, they had known them, and they were living right near us, and so that was lovely. And we we were in Claremont in California where Pomona College is, and so it was a, it was just...the church was a a united church [Train noise in background]; there was only one church in town (it was a small town), and so we attended there, and everybody was just as friendly as could be. It was while I was there, when I was ten, that I (cause I I had my tenth birthday just very soon after we got back) I told my father that I wanted to join the church. And so he said, "Well, talk to the pastor." So I had to go for six weeks.
SHUSTER: When did you give your life to Christ?
ELLIOTT: Well, I I never really knew when I actually believed in the Lord Jesus because Mother and Dad just brought us up to. We had family prayers every day, whether Mother, if it were just Mother or if it was Mother and Dad together, and we were expected to memorize Scripture, and we were supposed to memorize at least one verse every day and five on Sunday.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And [clears throat] so we...and then we would learn psalms, different psalms, and and then my father would ask us to explain what we thought that meant. And so we just were brought up, and I don't know when I accepted the Lord. Why, I just thought, of course, everybody would believe in Jesus. That Jesus loved us enough to die for us; why, of course. And so I, but it was when I was ten that I said that I wanted to. And then when we had to go for these classes, there were a whole lot of other children who wanted to join the church, but every time the pastor would ask a question I always knew the answer. [Laughs]
SHUSTER: You had been well-grounded.
ELLIOTT: Well, I, I just praised the Lord for the way my father and mother just grounded us in the Word. They said that was the important thing.
SHUSTER: What were the .... You went to the Presbyterian church in China?
ELLIOTT: Yeah, well, we it was it was a united church because they didn't have there weren't enough Presbyterian people. ...
SHUSTER: Now was this the church for the entire city?
ELLIOTT: In English. The English United Church was was for, but then the other, they had, in Chi...the Chinese churches. Now when we were children we attended the English church.
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: And the Chinese had a lot of churches. I mean different denominations had denominational churches.
SHUSTER: Since it was an English language church, I imagine mostly it was Westerners who would attend.
ELLIOTT: Yes. I don't remember, well, maybe there were a very few Chinese who had been abroad or, you know, had been to Shanghai or something, who could, who knew English. They were welcome, but most of them...it was all Europeans.
SHUSTER: It occurs to me that while you were growing up, of course, the first World War broke out. Did that cause any division in the missionary community in in Changsha, since there were German and Allied nationalities represented?
ELLIOTT: No [speaking during Shuster's last few words], there wasn't any feeling at all. And I can remember that we had Christmas, our Christmas party at our house, and one of the German men was to be Santa. And so when he came in he went and he tweaked Margaret's hair (she had she had two little braids hanging down), and I was, that scared the life out of me, and just because I, we didn't, wasn't used to having anybody pull our hair, and so I ran upstairs, and I ran into Mother and Dad's bedroom, and I went under their bed in the far corner. And Mother came and hunting and calling me, and finally I said, "I'm here." And [Laughs] she said, "Why, what's the matter?" And I said, "I'm afraid of Santa." And [Laughs] she said, "Why?" I said, "He pulled Margaret's hair." [Laughs] And so then she said, "Aw, don't be afraid. Why, he's a nice Santa. He's got something nice for you. You come down." So she carried me down, and then then Santa took me in his arms, and he gave me a kiss, and he said, "Aw, don't worry, Honey. I'm not gonna hurt you." And so then I loved Santa. [Laughs] But he was a German, and so we we all, you know, we all met together and all of the...at that that Christmas, we were the host and host for the whole...
SHUSTER: Community.
ELLIOTT: ...community. They all came. So it was nice.
SHUSTER: Um hmm. When you came back to the United States you say there wasn't any there wasn't any culture shock for you coming to the United States from China.
ELLIOTT: We didn't feel it.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: We just accepted it. We were used to changes, you know. We went from Changsha up to Kuling. Well, in Kuling there were a lot of foreigners, you see; that was the foreign community for the summer.
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: And it was really started by doctors, CIM [China Inland Mission] doctors got a a .... In 1898 they got a lease from the Chinese government for Kuling for 99 years. So that missionaries and business people, anybody who wanted to, could come up there because it was so beautifully cool, and the Yangtze River valley and all of the south of China was so hot and humid that many, many people were very sick during the summer. And so these doctors said, "Well, we've got to get a cool place." And they found this lovely place, and so [clears throat] they had different, they had the main valley with a lovely stream down, and and then they had little valleys off, you know, and and it was all the different missions would build homes up there. And so the American Bible Society built homes, and my father bought one of those homes, and so that was the home that we always went to.
SHUSTER: After you graduated from high school in Long Beach, you were in Long Beach then for about ten years? nine years?
ELLIOTT: No, because we were in we were in Claremont while Dad was in ...
SHUSTER: France.
ELLIOTT: ...in France, for three years...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...you see. Well, he had been there one year for for furlough...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and then three more years, so it was four years before we went to Long Beach.
SHUSTER: But the same general area of California.
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: . Some missionary children.... Was it a problem that when you were growing up as a teenager that your parents might have been in China, or did they...?
ELLIOTT: Well, now, that was a problem.
SHUSTER: How did you cope with that, or...?
ELLIOTT: Well, the thing... there was, the thing that made it a problem really was not so much...you see, they left us with Aunt Rose.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: But very unfortunately, she became under the influence of a woman who was a [pauses] a very ultra speaking-in-tongues...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...person.
SHUSTER: Pentecostal?
ELLIOTT: Pentecostal, but of the, you know, roll on the ground--Holy Roller.
[Laughs] Really. It was...and so she induced Aunt Rose to bring us. And so then we wrote to Mother and Dad about it. Well, they were terribly upset. Well, at first, she took us to a place where it was orderly...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and so we didn't mind that, when they'd be sitting there quietly, and a man would stand up and, oh, to me it sounded just like gibberish, and then he'd wait, he'd sit down, and then then another person, usually another man, would stand up and say, "I have the interpretation." And it would be a nice little sermonette. Well, we didn't mind that at all. But then she took us to another place where it was literally where women would scream and raise their hands, you know, and then fall over and fall down and roll down and everything, and we...
SHUSTER: [Chuckles]
ELLIOTT: ...it just made me shudder. Well, when we wrote to that, wrote about that to Mother and Dad, Dad said, "I'm sorry, children, but Aunt Rose...I, I've just got to ask her to leave you."
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: Well, Margaret was a senior in high school. I was a junior; Frances was in junior high, and Ed was about in sixth grade. And there were the four of us there, and Margaret was only 17. And she had to be in charge of our, of us.
SHUSTER: Where'd you live? Did you have your own home, or...?
ELLIOTT: Well, we had rented...my my parents had rented a house just across the street from the church
SHUSTER: I see.
ELLIOTT: ...that really was supporting mostly. They...and ...
SHUSTER: So the pastor or the church staff would also look in occasionally, I imagine.
ELLIOTT: Oh, yes. And [laughs] every Sunday morning the ladies would come and go [apparently pantomines something] [Laughs] And boy, did we clean...
SHUSTER: They'd check to make sure it was clean and no dust...
ELLIOTT: ...yes, did we clean house! But Aunt Rose had been so careful. Now she hadn't been well, and I think that mostly this was a nervous reaction to her friendship with this lady...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: I don't know. But so she said, "I can't do all this work and take care of all of you." So Mondays whe...after school when we came home, we did the washing. On Tuesdays we did the ironing. On Wednesdays we cleaned house. On Thursdays we each had different jobs. I did all the baking. I baked bread and any other things. We we didn't have a lot of sweets. And Fridays we'd, we had other special jobs to do. And then she said, "Saturday is your day."
SHUSTER: [Chuckles]
ELLIOTT: And so we'd go down, we...go down to the beach and swim all day, be down at the beach and play, or else we'd p...come home and play tennis, and we loved it. The the church had a tennis court, and we were just across the street from the church, so...
SHUSTER: Sure.
ELLIOTT: ...we played tennis all the time. I love tennis. And we had played--Mother was a very good tennis player, and we had started playing tennis, I'd started when I could just barely swing a racket...
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: ...when I was about five, [Laughs] I started playing tennis. And ...
SHUSTER: You still play?
ELLIOTT: I can't now. I was in a terrible accident...
SHUSTER: Oh.
ELLIOTT: ...and mashed all the bones in my...
SHUSTER: Was that recently, or...?
ELLIOTT: ...elbow. Oh, it was about, let me see, about eight years ago--I've forgotten how many years ago, something like that, and so I had to...Oh, that was a very, that was when I was down in Florida, and there was a cloudburst, and the, I had never heard of hydroplaning before, but I found out the hard way. The back of my car just went Zoom! like that right across right across the median, right into oncoming traffic.
SHUSTER: Over the side.
ELLIOTT: So...I was I was for a whole year before I could even...
SHUSTER: Were you in the hospital for...?
ELLIOTT: Well, I was in the hospital for quite a few months, and then was in the nursing home for three months and then I, when I came back I had to go every day for therapy for the rest of the year. But ...
SHUSTER: When...When you were growing up in in California,...'course, you, after high school you went to BIOLA...
ELLIOTT: Yes
SHUSTER: ...as you said earlier. What was in your mind? What were you preparing yourself for?
ELLIOTT: Oh, I forgot to tell you that when I was 13 we, we we were in...they had Christian Endeavor, in, and southern California had lots of Christian Endeavor Societies, and our church had a lovely Christian Endeavor group, different age groups of Christian Endeavor. And I went to, we always went to the Christian Endeavor conventions. And so when I was 13.... Before that the ladies would come and they'd say, "Now, Margaret, are you going to be a missionary when...?" And she'd say, "Yes." And so I'd quickly get behind her and push Frances forward, and they'd say, "Frances, are you going to be a missionary?" And she'd say, "Yes." And then she'd say, they'd say, "Ruth, are you going to be a missionary?" I'd say, "Nope."
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: And, [Laughs] and so I was determined I wasn't gonna be a missionary; it was just too hard work. And...but then at the, at this convention I had been feeling that the Lord was speaking to me about being willing (whether I would go or not would be a a different thing) but being willing was the thing that the Lord was impressing on me. And so on this we went Friday night and then Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday night then the the speaker asked first for those who wanted to accept the Lord as their Savior, and quite a few went forward, and then he said, "Now, I want to ask a question for you Christian young people. How many of you would be willing, if the Lord directs you, would be willing to go as a missionary?"
SHUSTER: [Chuckles]
ELLIOTT: I just felt as if that was a dagger in my heart, and yet I felt, I've got to; I've simply got to. And he I think I waited until he'd said it three times...
SHUSTER: [Chuckles]
ELLIOTT: ...and then I went forward. I just said, "I know," and from then on I was convinced that I was going to go as a missionary.
SHUSTER: And is that why you went to BIOLA?
ELLIOTT: Yes. I, when I first applied to BIOLA, I was too young, and so they had to make a special ruling of the [laughs] faculty to allow me to enter. But I, they they had to, they had me up there for questioning and everything and [laughs]....
SHUSTER: Say, was Dr. Torrey still at BIOLA when you attended, or was...?
ELLIOTT: No, Dr. McGuinness was the head then. He was fine.
SHUSTER: You said you mentioned you studied Music at BIOLA?
ELLIOTT: Yes.
SHUSTER: How did that tie in with planning to go as a missionary? Or hadn't you definitely decided? How did the music training tie in being going to the mission field?
ELLIOTT: Well, it was just that while I was in high school I had a...I went to Long Beach Polyhigh, and we had a very fine music department. And and I I first took Music Appreciation, and then different to, learning to read music fast and then I took Harmony.
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: And the teacher who taught that Harmony used the book that they used at the University. And because she had of...I had taken the first thing from her, which was just elementary, and then I took the second year...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...of Harmony from her, and that was the book that they used at the University. So I was thrilled with it; I just loved Harmony. Well, we three girls from the time we were little, we always sang trios.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And we when I think that I was only about...first we sang duets, and then when I was about five or six, I made up a third part. And then when we came in and we sang that for Daddy, why he was so thrilled! "Oh," he said, "My, you're singing a trio!" And from then on we sang trios. And we always have...and we loved harmony. Well, Mother was a good pianist, and she she always played the lovely harmony. And my father was a, he sang very well, and so he loved harmony. So he encouraged us to sing in parts.
SHUSTER: Did you have, when you went to BIOLA, anything in mind as far as using your music, or was just that you loved music and you wanted to continue to study?
ELLIOTT: At that time it was really that, but it was really the Bible that we had very good courses. And but, of course, I took the Bi...the music courses, and it was including directing music, how to teach music, and so I was glad for that.
SHUSTER: Did you ever use that material, or...?
ELLIOTT: Oh, did I!
SHUSTER: [Chuckles]
ELLIOTT: Afterward, you see, when I was, ha...after I had been te...working in Anhwei province for ten...well, Anhwei and Honan province for ten years, then I was asked to go and teach in the school for the children of missionaries. And so then I taught music all the way, and I taught for seven years before we had to leave China.
SHUSTER: Growing up in California, did you every feel that there was a a spotlight on you 'cause you were a missionary's child? ...
ELLIOTT: Well, no not specially. No, we didn't feel that...
SHUSTER: Singled out, or...?
ELLIOTT: ..., I don't know...we just..., One thing that I liked was that also I was always interested in sports. And so when I was a senior in high school, the faculty had chosen 35 girls to be in a special class for those who wanted to teach Phys Ed. And I mean who...to train themif they wanted to, and they, and if you were chosen to be in that class.... We had 20, 2500 girls in our high school and ...
SHUSTER: 22,000, was it? That's 2200.
ELLIOTT: No, 2000. There are four, four thousand between four and five thousand students, and most, more of them were girls than fellows, at Long Beach Poly. And we had a big girls' gym, a big boys' gym, and a big swimming pool between. And we took different days for the girls and boys. And so we we had big fields for playing and so we were taught in my senior year then I was in was one of those who ha...was fortunate to be in that group of gymnastics where we were, well, we were taught to how to teach children...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...teach girls to play basketball, to play softball, to play hockey, and we learned to play soccer, and we learned to play golf...
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...and we and then we had to be the... we'd for the freshmen, we had to teach the freshman classes at times, and so it was really a very good experience...
SHUSTER: Um hmm.
ELLIOTT: ...before I ever went to college.
SHUSTER: Yes, it sounds...
ELLIOTT: I was...
SHUSTER: [unclear]
ELLIOTT: So then when I came to college, why, I...we had to work our way; we got a scholarship for half of it... half of our tuition...
SHUSTER: This, why did you get th...because you were missionaries' children?
ELLIOTT: Because we were missionaries' children. Wheaton was very good about that.
SHUSTER: Hmm.
ELLIOTT: And then, oh, did we work hard!
SHUSTER: [Laughs]
ELLIOTT: We [laughs] when my sister...this last spring my sister came for the fiftieth anniversary of her graduation, and so I was driving around through Wheaton, and we were on West Street, and she said, "Ha, I used to clean THAT house, I used to clean THAT house, I used to clean THAT house, I used to clean THAT house." And I said, "Yeah, and I cleaned THAT, and I cleaned THAT, and [laughs]"
SHUSTER: Cleaned up half of Wheaton.
ELLIOTT: Yep. We two.
SHUSTER: Well, I think we're kind of at the end of our tape, so why don't we close it on that note
ELLIOTT: [Laughs]
SHUSTER: ...with your childhood in China and your teenagehood, teenage period in the United States, and perhaps in our next interview we can go on to your your training and your first years in China as a missionary.
ELLIOTT: Fine.
SHUSTER: Thank you very much.
ELLIOTT: [Laughs]
END OF TAPE