This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the oral history interview of Margaret Rice Elliott Crossett (CN 287, T4) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms are not commonly understood appear in italics. Place names in non-Western alphabets are spelled in the transcript in the old or new transliteration form according to how the speaker pronounced them. For example, Peking may be used instead of Beijing, because that is how the interviewee pronounced it. In very few cases words were too unclear to be distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. The transcribers have not attempted to phonetically replicate English dialects but have instead entered the standard English word the speaker was expressing. Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of though within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of a incomplete sentence.
() Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
This transcription was made by Timothy Harder and Janyce H. Nasgowitz and was completed in March 1996.
Collection 287, T4. Interview of Margaret Rice Elliott Crossett by Paul A. Ericksen, February 15, 1985.
CROSSETT: When I was at language school...when I first went in to language school, we were the first party to arrive and Miss Cole, who was in charge, she looked us over and she said, "Now, which of these girls do I know?" And we...we...we pushed forward Annabella Macleod because she was...she was a daughter of the mission. And she said, "Yeah, I know Annabella, but I know Margaret Elliott." I said, "How in the world did you know me?" And she said, "Well, in 1910, when your folks went up to China after being home for a while, you were a little girl on the ship and I was a...a new missionary just going out." [She] said, "I remember you" [laughs]. I was only four years old then. I was astonished.
ERICKSEN: Did you get to know her well during your year there?
CROSSETT: Quite well. Uh-huh.
ERICKSEN: Was she...you mentioned that she's prim and proper. Was she easy to...to get along with then?
CROSSETT: Yes. She was very sweet. Yeah. She used to come down the hall at night and try to kiss us good night. Some of the girls didn't like and they'd hide in the room. But she was very sweet and loving. And she would...when we'd go out for walks, she would allow some of us to go in groups, small groups, out for walks to go out of the city and into the country. And she would always pick me to head the group because she said, "You know Chinese customs." And one of the girls was walking along whistling and I said, "Don't you do that. You can't whistle, a woman can't whistle in China." She said, "Oh," but I just instinctively knew it.
ERICKSEN: Why shouldn't a woman whistle?
CROSSETT: That...women on the street always were prim and proper in those days in China. They never did anything like that.
ERICKSEN: So it was a little too wild?
CROSSETT: Yeah. Uh-huh. You're supposed to just walk quietly down the street [chuckles].
ERICKSEN: Once you were better and you were ready to be designated, did you go back to Shanghai for your designation?
CROSSETT: No. Mr. [Dixon Edward] Hoste came.
ERICKSEN: He came to the language...?
CROSSETT: Came to the language school and designated us.
ERICKSEN: Was that always the custom, that he would come to the language school and you'd go directly from the language school?
CROSSETT: Yes. I did go back to Shanghai, though, to meet my senior missionary and then we went up inland from there.
ERICKSEN: Did...you told me about how Mr. Hoste brought up the...the possibility of going to Shucheng. Did you have any voice in saying where you'd like to go? Were you asked?
CROSSETT: He...he...he would have listened if I had suggested anyplace, but....
ERICKSEN: But you didn't have...?
CROSSETT: I didn't...I didn't have any particular place in mind.
ERICKSEN: Now at this point, when you were just ready to begin your work, at what stage was your relationship with...with Vincent?
CROSSETT: We were corresponding, that's all.
ERICKSEN: Okay. And he arrived in 1934. Now we're talking...I guess the end of language school for you would be...?
CROSSETT: 1930.
ERICKSEN: Okay. When in the course of those five years did your relationship start to change?
CROSSETT: Well....
ERICKSEN: Or was the fact that you were corresponding already an indication that it had changed?
CROSSETT: Yes, it was. We hadn't corresponded for a while. I quit because I thought, well, he's not coming out to China. What's the use. But then, when I prayed about it, the Lord showed me that He was going to bring him out. That was before Vincent realized that he was going to come. So then I started writing again. And then we kept writing and then he...finally he wrote and said that he was thinking of going to India, would I go with him. I said, "No. The Lord put me in China." And then he said, "Well, I'm going to apply for India and I'll apply for China. And the one...the...the letter that comes first in answer to my letter will be the one. So I did some praying [train noise]. And the China Inland Mission letter came one day and the India mission came the next, both asking him to come as candidate.
ERICKSEN: Now, which mission was the...the Indian mission?
CROSSETT: It was some mission that was in the far northwest of India. I think...I've forgotten what it was. But there was a friend that had been out there who was urging him to go. And he was interested, but the Lord led him to China.
ERICKSEN: You said that when you were praying about it the Lord showed you that Vincent would come to China. How...how did that happen?
CROSSETT: Well, He just confirmed it in my heart.
ERICKSEN: So you knew....
CROSSETT: I was sure that he was coming.
ERICKSEN: Were you...did you know that you would be...be married or was that...?
CROSSETT: Well, I...I expected that [laughs].
ERICKSEN: So you were corresponding in 1930....
CROSSETT: Before I left language school. He was in seminary then. Or I guess he was just in his senior year of college.
ERICKSEN: At what point did...did things change?
CROSSETT: Oh, I don't know. As we gradually corresponded, it gradually became more intimate. But there was no indication that we could commit ourselves until after he was accepted by the mission, 'cause the mission would have sent me home if we had become engaged before he came out.
ERICKSEN: Okay. Who was you your senior missionary that you went to Shucheng with?
CROSSETT: Her name was Hazel Todd, Miss Hazel Todd. She was in her second term, just starting her second term.
ERICKSEN: And was...you were part of the two hundred. Was Shucheng a new station?
CROSSETT: No, it wasn't, but I was supposed to be under a senior missionary for a while before I was sent out.
ERICKSEN: To a pioneering situation.
CROSSETT: Uh-huh.
ERICKSEN: So had there been other CIM workers in Shucheng?
CROSSETT: Yes. But at the time there were none.
ERICKSEN: So you were opening up the station again. Is that...?
CROSSETT: Well, you can say that. The church had been going on. The Chinese had been carrying it on.
ERICKSEN: So when you got to Shucheng what did you begin doing?
CROSSETT: I continued to study the language. And then...Hazel was a...a different kind of a person [laughs]. She was...[clears throat] I don't know why she said this, but you see, there were three of us under her and all young missionaries.
ERICKSEN: Remember who the other two were?
CROSSETT: Yes. It was Ruth Hinckley [?] and Eva Knight [?] and I. And Eva and I...in fact the Chinese leaders in the church came to me and said, "Would you start a Sunday school? We need a Sunday school." And so Eva said, "Oh, let's do. Let's work and start a Sunday school." There were a lot of children. And we asked Hazel about it because we weren't supposed to start anything without her approval. And she said, "Nope, I don't believe in children's work." And we said, "Oh, that's funny. Why don't you believe in children's work?" She wouldn't..."I don't want any Sunday school." So the ke...the leaders of the church kept urging us, so Eva and I said, "No matter what Hazel says, we're going to start a Sunday school." So we started [chuckles] and she didn't say anything and after it got going, and the children were learning the Scriptures and choruses and songs, and we're teaching their parents, and everything and then Hazel was so proud, our Sunday school [laughs].
ERICKSEN: She ever give any...any indication that she had been wrong or...?
CROSSETT: No.
ERICKSEN: Was she just a proud woman or what was it that...?
CROSSETT: I think she was afraid of me. She had never finished high school, but she had gone to Biola. And here I was a college graduate and she didn't know what to do with me. She...she was...she...she gathered us together once and she said, "My senior missionary was hard on me and I'm going to be harder on you." And I think she used to lie awake thinking of things to make it hard [laughs].
ERICKSEN: What sort of things would make it harder?
CROSSETT: She wouldn't let us do anything. She would always balk everything we wanted to do. She was the missionary. She was going to do it all. And we had some rugged times, but the Lord taught us lessons, taught me lessons, at least, through it. But sometimes all three of them would gang up on me [laughs]. And....
ERICKSEN: All three of them, you mean...?
CROSSETT: Hazel and....
ERICKSEN: And the two others.
CROSSETT: The two others. And I didn't know why. It just...I couldn't understand it. And when I would speak, they'd say, "B.A., B.A." I'd say, "What in the world are they talking about?" It was several months before I understood it was my degree they were talking about. And they just made life sort of miserable, but taught me to be humble.
ERICKSEN: Were things...was the conflict such that it was sort of a...there was a break in the relationship that would need to be resolved or was it just something that you just sort of had to live with?
CROSSETT: I just lived with it, but it was some....caused me a lot of heartache. And like one time, one of the women, sort of a Bible woman, on the compound.... We used to have compound prayers with those on the compound every evening. And after the meeting one evening, this Mrs. Wong [?] came to me and she said, "I have discovered a relative here in town. Would you come with me and tell her the gospel? She's open." And I said, "I'd be glad to, but I must tell Miss Todd that I am going out." And she said, "Oh, there isn't time, it's too late." It was getting dark and she said, "It's too late, I'll just take you." So I went with her without telling the others. And we had a lovely time and this woman received the Lord and she was...she was happy and I was happy and Mrs. Wong [?] was happy. We came back and I...here I was locked out of the house. And I had to wait about half an hour and finally they opened it up and said, "Where were you? What were you doing?" And I told them and they...they just landed on me and I just went up to my room weeping. But afterward Hazel went to see this woman and she...they became very good friends and she just sort of claimed that she had led her to the Lord. And, well, it just didn't matter to me as long as she believed. But [chuckles] it was incidents like that, that were hard to live with.
ERICKSEN: Were...were there...was there any sort of mechanism in the mission to deal with conflict like that?
CROSSETT: Yes. If I had written to headquarters, but I didn't. I didn't want to report so I just let it go. Another girl of our year was sent to another senior missionary who was like that and she wrote and the senior missionary was sent home, but I didn't want to cause anything like that. [Pauses] But I learned a lot when I was with her.
ERICKSEN: How long was your time of being under her?
CROSSETT: I was two years there. I started a class for young women and I was teaching them the Bible. They were just raw heathen young women, in...that lived in the city. Most of the work there was country work. [Clears throat] But these were city girls and I started it and Hazel said, "You mustn't deal with those women. They're communists." I said, "They aren't. They aren't communists and they want to learn. They want to know about the Lord and the Word." But she was rude to them and one time they came to u...me crying. They said, "Why is she so rude to us. Doesn't she like us?" And I said, "Oh." I tried to cover it up. I said, "Oh, she's just...that's her way, you know. She likes you." And they said, "No, she doesn't. We know she doesn't like us." And they kept coming as long as I was there, but when...[clears throat] when I left, they quit coming and the next time I came back, they just laughed at me and wouldn't have anything to do with me [clears throat]. So it was just frustration a lot. See, I...after I'd been away in Tungcheng [Anhui Province] in charge of the station for a couple of years, well, then...well, Ruth and I were together. Then we were transferred back to Shucheng, 'cause I was going to get married and when I got back there, Hazel said, "There's nothing for you to do" [chuckles]. I said, "Well, I didn't come here just to sit around." And there were...there was a Bible class in the coun...there were two Bible classes in the country. One...Hazel taught one that had been taught by Doris Hinckley [?]. And Doris was transferred to another station, so I...she said...and that...that class was very, very small. Only a few people came to it. So she said, "You can have that class if you want it." So I said, "Okay, I'll take that class." So I went out, I called in all the homes around there and invited them to the meeting and then I made the meetings as interesting as I could, and I worked that class up until we had forty. And Hazel's class was getting smaller and smaller because she stuttered and she had a...a very poor command of Chinese. And I could speak better than she and the people all flocked to my class. And pretty soon, she came to me and she said, "We're going to change classes." I said, "We are not. This is my class and I'm going to teach it."
ERICKSEN: Now, by this time, you were no longer her...the junior under.
CROSSETT: No, by this time I was a senior missionary. And so she didn't say anything and then one...the...one of the elders...deacons in the church came to me and said, "You have so many classes for women, why not for men?" And I said, "Well, I'm just a young woman. How could I teach a men's class in China?" And they said, "Doesn't matter. We want teaching. You come and teach us." So I said...I said to Hazel, "I want to start a men's class" [clears throat]. Oh, she was horrified. And I said, "I want it in this room." There was a vacant room which was floored and airy and had a big window, and it wasn't being used at all. I said, "I would like to have the class in that room." "You can't. I'm going to put my class there." So she sa...I said, "Well, what class can I have...what room can I have?" And she said, "Oh, that little room in the back of the church." And I said, "Well, that's a men's bedroom, for men guests that come through." "Well, that's the only room you can have." So, I told the deacons, I said, "We'll meet in this class...in this room." They said, "Why not meet in that big room?" I said, "Miss Todd doesn't want us to meet there." So we met in this little bedroom, and it got so full. All the men were pouring in there and it got so full, I was squeezed up against the wall. But they were so hungry for the word. And then they...they branched out into the back entrance of the church, where there...it was just sort of an entry way. They just crowded in there. Then, when I was going away, I...I went to the head deacon, who had been to Bible school, and he could have taught the class, and I said, "Won't you take this class over, because I'm going to be married and I'm going to leave." And he sa...they all wanted him to take it. But he said, "I must ask Miss Todd." He asked Miss Todd and she says, "No, I'm going to teach it." And nobody came. That was the end of the class [chuckles]. But [train noise] she...she was good in her own way. She...she helped a lot and taught the people, but in regard to me, there was just that...that kind of thing all the time.
ERICKSEN: So you think that it was basical...the basic problem was between the two of you more than [as Crossett speaks] her being a poor missionary?
CROSSETT: [As Ericksen is still speaking] I think so. I think so. I think it was. I think it was jealousy. She was just trying to thwart me every...all the time.
ERICKSEN: Would there have been the possibility of being reassigned in order to...?
CROSSETT: It could have been, but I wa...I thought, "Well, the Lord put me here and I'm not going to move."
ERICKSEN: Uh-huh. [Pauses] Going back...thinking about that time when you first started in Shucheng, how long did the mission generally expect a new missionary to sort of get used to the work? Was that...well, I'll let you answer.
CROSSETT: For the two hundred, they were trying to thrust us out as fast as possible. I had two years, but some of the others were sent out a lot sooner than that.
ERICKSEN: We've talked about Shucheng a little. What kind of town was it? How big was it?
CROSSETT: It was a county seat. It wasn't a very large town. It was a walled city, but it wasn't very big. I wouldn't know how t...how big it was, how the population was, 'cause Chinese cities are so crowded. The population is much bigger than it would be in the same amount of space here in this country. And, oh, I would s...I would...I don't know...I'd...maybe a hundred...fifty thousand, or something like that, but I...I wouldn't know, really.
ERICKSEN: Was it a clean city?
CROSSETT: What Chinese city is clean [chuckles], at least in...wh...in those days? No. It was more of a country town, really.
ERICKSEN: What was the countryside like? Was it hilly or flat?
CROSSETT: It was flat. The hills you could see in the distance, but it was flat. And they raised rice and soybeans, I think, there. And the pa...farmers were poor and...but there was one family called the Ton family. Their name was Ton, and they...they came to the Lord. The whole tribe of them came to the Lord. And...and when they came to the Lord, they started keeping Sunday, worshiping on Sunday. And they tried not to harvest on Sunday and the Lord prospered them. They were very poor when they first became Christians. The Lord prospered them and they became quite well to do. And when we'd go out to the country to evangelize, the people would say, "Yes, yes, yes, look at the Ton family, how the Lord's blessed them." And they were a good testimony throughout the countryside. And it was...it was interesting to see how the Lord used their lives to influence others to come to the Lord.
ERICKSEN: From what I can see, then in 1933, you were transferred to Tungchung...Tungcheng [Anhui Province]...
CROSSETT: Tungcheng.
ERICKSEN: ...with Ruth.
CROSSETT: Yeah. That was a...a larger city and it was...we were just outside the wall, which was very high, thick wall. And the...it was a city of scholars. Most of the...many of the men were graduates of the...of the...what do you call it? The school of pencils, you know, the emperor's school, and had the imperial decre...degree. And they were very well...very cultured people. And they...outside their...over their gates, they would have little round posts sticking out from over the walls, over the door, showing that they were a graduate of this very difficult examination. And they were wealthy people. And they didn't speak ordinary Chinese, they spoke the one-li [?], which was the cultured Chinese which nobody speaks and nobody reads any more. But they would speak it and we had to learn to greet them with their cultured greetings and everything which were entirely foreign to the ordinary Chinese. And when we visited them, they...they would show us through these beautiful, beautiful homes with the beautiful gardens. And their homes were full of beautiful porcelains and beautiful furniture. And they're a very proud people, very difficult to give the gospel to. It was...there were two girls from such a home, teenage girls, that came and believed and they were...they were very enthusiastic. And then when we left.... One of the girls had gone to...because she was a Christian, she wanted to be a nurse, and she went down to Shanghai to Bethel Hospital. I recommended that she go there and she went to Bethel Hospital and became a nurse. She was there when the Japanese bombed Shanghai, just outside the hospital. She told me that she just...she went out and rescued people that were all mangled and brought them into the hospital and showed herself very brave. Then later she was a government nurse. She was a nurse in Hangchow [Zhejiang Province] and Hangchow is the middle of China and...at least the middle of that...it's on the Yangtze River. And she was in a government hospital in Hangchow when Hangchow was bombed and was just about to be taken over by the Japanese. And the whole staff of the hospital, doctors, nurses, everybody fled except Row-we [?], and she said, "I'm a Christian. I cannot leave a thousand wounded soldiers in this hospital to be murdered by the Japanese. And I don't know how she did it. She was just a little girl. She got these thousand solders out in the country to a place of safety. And because she did that, the government set her over here to study at Mayo Clinic. And she was there for a year and she did so well that the Mayo Clinic invited her to stay on their staff. But she...instead, she decided that she owed it to her country to go back. And she married a...a Chinese young man who was studying...he was getting his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, and they went back together. He wasn't a Christian. To this day, he's not a Christian, but he's a very nice man. And they went back and he...she was nursing and teaching in a university, and then we lost track of them because of the war. And so then we...it was two or three years ago we suddenly got a letter from them from a place...Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He was teaching in Swarthmore College for a year. He had been invited as an exchange professor for the year. And so we happened to be in New Jersey at the time. We had drove down and had a lovely day with them. And she told me about her experiences during the Cultural Revolution because she was a Christian. And he w...he said, "If I didn't have a family and parents out in China, I would stay here. I would leave China entirely." But he...they felt they should go back so they went back. And he's...he's been teaching in a university in Shanghai and I got a letter from them recently saying that he was teaching in another college in a different place. And he's...he and some others were startin...thinking of starting a college and he would be the president. And we had given...they had lost everything as far as Bibles were concerned, so we gave them an English Bible and a Chinese Bible while they were here. And she...we...I never mentioned a Bible in the letters I write, but I say, "Are you reading the book that we gave you?" And in the last letter, she said, "Yes, I'm reading the book everyday." So she's not a strong Christian but is standing for the Lord. So we pray for her and we rejoice. And her sister, her younger sister...I was going calling in...in Taiwan one time, in a village, military village, and I was visiting in the homes, and as I went down the street a...a Chinese lady passed me. And she turned around and looked at me and she said, "Where are you from?" I said, "America." She said, "Have you ever been in China?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Do you know Li-chuk-long [?]." And I said, "Well, I'm Li-chuk-long [?]." And she hugged me and she said, "I'm [unclear]." And she was so happy. And then she told me what experiences she had had, terrible experiences. And she...she still had her faith, but she didn't know too much. I tried to teach her and I tried to get her to go to church, but she wouldn't go to church because she was one of these proud, educated women and the people there were all ignorant country women, wives of...of military, and she wouldn't go to church. But she wanted her daughter to become a Christian, so I talked to her and she accepted the Lord. But she hasn't gone on with the Lord like...like her older sister has. But, anyway, it was interesting after all those years to meet those two girls.
ERICKSEN: You mentioned the...the first girl's experiences during the Cultural Revolution. What did she...what had she experienced?
CROSSETT: Well, she didn't dare tell me too much. She had trial, you know, and all that, and she didn't say just what she w...she lost her job. They wouldn't let her work. And she...I...I don't know exactly all she went through but she said it was terrible, just because she was a Christian.
ERICKSEN: Well, I think we'd...we'd better stop.
CROSSETT: Okay.
ERICKSEN: [Unclear] our time. And rather than getting started any further on Tungcheng, we'll leave it at that.
CROSSETT: Well, I'll tell you about the country work next time.
ERICKSEN: Okay.
END OF TAPE