Unbound Spirit: Letters of Flora Belle Jan

1. One’s True Friend

3 1 One’s True Friend Flora Belle Jan’s parents, Jan Suey Ming (also known as Jan Chong)1 and Yen Shee (née Dow Gee), originally from the Chungshan District near Macao, were part of the Chinese diaspora that sent thousands of emigrants from southern China to many parts of the world.2 Jan Chong was twenty-two years old when he arrived in San Francisco in 1892.3 Six years later, Dow Gee reached San Francisco.4 She was fifteen years younger than Jan Chong. Following their marriage and the birth of their first two sons, Munn Ching and Munn Hee, born in 1904 and 1905, they moved to Fresno, California, where they resided for three decades. Flora was born on September 22, 1906. Four more daughters and another son would arrive in the next eighteen years. Jan Chong owned and operated the Yet Far Low, a prosperous restaurant on a short, narrow street called China Alley. Flora fetched and carried in the restaurant and later, after school, worked as a cashier. She also helped at home with household chores and babysat the younger children. She felt closest to her eldest brother, Munn Ching, and two younger sisters, Bessie and Muriel. The spoken language at home was Cantonese, which was of little use to her in later years when she lived in Mandarin-speaking northern China. Flora attended the Lincoln Elementary and Edison Intermediate public schools in Fresno, where children from several cultures (American, European, Asian, and Mexican) mingled freely. Ludmelia Holstein (Ludy), Flora’s best friend and classmate, was born on April 22, 1905, in Uralfka, Russia, a Cossack village on the Ural River. She had immigrated to California with her German-speaking parents in 1913. Adjoining Ludy’s house, her family had a gasoline service station and store (which displayed signs advertising ice cream, candy, toys, and clocks). Ludy, the second child with one older brother and three younger siblings, regularly helped with household tasks because her mother’s health was often delicate. In later years she worked at tedious jobs to supplement the family’s income. Flora and Ludy attended school together from second grade all the way through two years of college. The “Sunnyside Club” in the Fresno Herald was a featured column for young readers. The column, edited by Grace May North, began publication on February 8, 1918. Ms. North encouraged readers to contribute stories and poems to the column. Because their favorite pastime was writing, Flora and Ludy were enthusiastic contributors. While in sixth grade, both wrote stories, poems, and riddles that were published in the Herald.5 For their writings, they received “gold stars” that could be exchanged for thrift stamps at the office of the Herald. The letters in this chapter were written during summer vacations and winter breaks when Flora and Ludy were eleven to thirteen years old. They reflect the girls’ literary interests and contain gossip about friends and family. One letter recorded that Flora, just before her twelfth birthday, was working ten-hour days at a fruit-packing house.6 These early letters are included in this volume because they show Flora’s indomitable will to write and give a foretaste of her later development as a writer. For some forty to fifty years, Ludy maintained contact with several of their mutual friends from grammar school, high school, and college. She visited and corresponded with Lupe Caudillo, Zella Parker, Elsie Bopp Perry, Mary Geerts, and Eleanor White, to name a few. In a 1971 (June 16) letter to Fleur Yano, Ludy wrote, Lupe’s home on Pottle St. in Fresno has been the same for over 40 years— . . . By the way, Lupe is the same girl we called Lope in grammar school and I was so strongly reminded of our sub-teens when both Florabelle and I quarreled with Lupe (Lope) because she seemed to inject a disharmonious element in our relationship. We didn’t realize at the time that she was having dreadful problems at home and her talents and ambitions were completely squelched during the years F. was doing just about everything that comes naturally and I was well taken care of, with most of my outlets drawn on paper and day dreaming and reading down one shelf across the next, indiscriminately but profitably at the library. 4 california July 31, 1918 Dearest Ludie: You seem to be so happy when you...