Unbound Spirit: Letters of Flora Belle Jan

4. A Plunge into Domesticity

37 4 A Plunge into Domesticity At age nineteen, Flora Jan traveled by the Southern Pacific train from Fresno to Chicago in late December of 1925. She had left in some haste, partly because she was eager to begin a new life outside of California, and partly to escape turmoil at home. There would be no Christmas celebration because her three-year-old sister Fern was fatally ill. During the first three months of 1926, she wrote five letters to Ludmelia , reporting on her demanding schedule of studies at the University of Chicago and off-campus part-time work. She was lonely at first, but soon became involved with Charles Wang, a graduate student in psychology . They were married on September 7, 1926. Her creative writing continued with the publication of two poems in The Survey. There are large time gaps between letters from March 1926 to the end of 1928. In 1927, Ludmelia received a Valentine’s Day card, a convocation announcement, and only one letter, for Flora was very busy. She graduated from the University of Chicago in June 1927, receiving a bachelor’s degree with honors. She served as chairman and ex officio councilman of the Chicago Club in the Chinese Students’ Alliance.1 Her articles appeared in The Interpreter and in the Chinese Christian Student.2 In October 1927 she gave birth to a son, whom they named Hanson. The next year Flora became a contributing editor of the Chinese Students’ Monthly and invited her friend Ludmelia also to write poetry for publication. Ludmelia sent three poems.3 Charles Wang was the younger but more ambitious and adventurous of two sons in a traditional Chinese family. He excelled in competitive examinations to enter the elite Tsing Hua College in Peking,4 where he studied for two years before going abroad. At age eighteen Charles arrived as a freshman at Furman University, a liberal arts university in Greenville , South Carolina. He graduated in 1924. Two years later he earned a master’s degree at the University of Chicago. He was in the doctoral program in psychology when he married Flora Jan. The young couple enjoyed dances and other social events of the Chinese Students’ Club. Shortly after Flora arrived in Chicago, Ludmelia completed work for a teaching credential in February 1926. She had remained at Fresno State College while Flora transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, and then to the University of Chicago. When Ludmelia’s father died in May 1925, leaving the family in debt, it became necessary for Ludy to work full time to help support the family. At first she worked at Parisian Cleaners for fourteen dollars a week. Then she took her first teaching job in Tranquillity, a small town thirty miles west of Fresno, where she taught second and fourth grades. She moved from Fresno to Tranquillity for the school year and very much enjoyed living at the boardinghouse run by the Forsythes. “Lots of fun with gang living there,” she wrote. Her annual salary of $1,500 helped pay off family debts and left enough for Fresno State summer school at Huntington Lake, about fifty miles northeast of Fresno in the Sierra National Forest.5 1373 E. 57th St. 4th Floor Chicago, IL Jan. 9, 1926 Dearest Ludy: I have been moving, and everything has been so unsettled that I could not truly give you a new address without being sure about it. Now I have a nice little room with the establishment of an American (modern ) artist and her mother, while Dr. and Mrs. Park are in the East. I feel disappointed in Mrs. Park, since she had said that she wanted me to live with them, and now she has decided that she wants a spare room for her guests. Such is the state of things—it rather hurts me that she should have made the suggestion at first herself, and then to decide later that it isn’t convenient. I think that she should realize her responsibility more and have me with them when she comes back, but of course I would never suggest it in the world! What I have done I have accomplished mostly by my own efforts, and perhaps it is just as well that there is nobody to be eternally indebted to. I work four and a half hours everyday at the Gargoyle tea room. I 38 chicago have been waiting...