That wasn’t a problem. “Wear your most sturdy shoes, and we will make our way through the hills until we get parallel with the train station. There, we can cut to the depot and catch the next train in the direction of San Rafael.”
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said. “You do not know what this means to me.”
Yes, I do, Dolly wanted to say. She very well knew that a rescue meant a woman would have a second chance at living a fulfilling life. A chance of happiness.
Soon they left the house through the kitchen and hurried through groves of trees, around bushes, and skirting the hillsides until they could head unobserved to the train depot.
“I’ll go first, then give you a signal that all is clear.” But the moment Dolly arrived on the platform, she saw that she had company. Three Chinese men were waiting for the next train. Under normal circumstances, she would have thought nothing about it. But circumstances weren’t normal. Besides, the men took turns casting looks in her direction. They were also dressed in full suits, and nothing about them suggested they were laborers. Rather, they appeared to be men who profited off of others for a living.
Dolly had no suitcase or traveling bag to occupy herself. And she couldn’t very well run back toward the trees where Tien was waiting with their charge. So Dolly took a seat on a bench, folded her hands, and kept her gaze upon her lap as if she were in deep contemplation.
The men didn’t speak to her, but she felt their eyes upon her more than once. If they had never seen her in person, they apparently had at least heard of her enough to know who she was.
The next train came, and, thankfully, the men boarded. Dolly’s shoulders sagged as their departing train gained speed and eventually disappeared.
Dolly rose to her feet, crossed the platform, and waved toward the trees. It wasn’t long before a disheveled Tien emerged, leading Li Na. They waited over an hour for the next train to arrive, and Dolly was a bundle of nerves until they were settled on the train in their own private compartment.
Only then did Li Na begin to tell her story. She told how her marriage had been arranged from China between her father and the man who was now her husband. She had come over to America with hope, but only a few weeks into the marriage, her new husband began to abuse her. Nothing she did was ever good enough. Nothing she could say would please him. Her husband only hurt her where others wouldn’t notice marks or bruising.
“I heard my maid talking about Miss Cameron,” Li Na admitted. “How she rescues women from brothels. And I thought . . .”
“You did the right thing,” Dolly assured her.
Despite the many rescues that Dolly had been a part of, and despite the many stories she’d heard, it never failed to pain her heart when she listened to a victim share her story of trafficking and abuse. She moved to sit right next to Li Na and grasped her hand. Li Na clung to her fingers, and Dolly could only hope that Li Na would have enough courage to make a statement before a judge if her husband decided to pursue her.
When they climbed off the train and headed toward the house, Dolly went on alert when she saw a buggy leaving the house with no passengers inside.
“Who’s here?” Tien said immediately.
Dolly hoped Miss Ferree had been wise in whom she let into the house. But once they stepped inside, Dolly smiled at the jubilant activity going on. It seemed wedding preparations were under way, and Miss Ferree hurried to Dolly. “Yuen Kum’s beau has tracked us down.”
The planned wedding day in San Francisco had come and gone with the events of the earthquake changing everyone’s lives, but now Henry Lai had tracked down his bride-to-be.
Dolly looked over to where Henry Lai sat in the shabby parlor, a brilliant smile on his face. When he saw Dolly, he promptly rose to his feet and bowed. Then he explained how he had been desperately searching for them.
Dolly was smiling by the time he finished. “And Yuen Kum still wants to marry you?”
He laughed, knowing she was teasing. “She does, and we will be married tonight. Miss Ferree has already notified the minister, Dr. Landon, and he will marry us in the chapel at San Anselmo.”
“Wonderful,” Dolly said, elated for the couple. “I wish the two of you every happiness.”
She was well aware of Li Na listening into the conversation, and Dolly’s heart ached for the woman’s shattered heart and broken past right now.
Dolly had only to look at Tien, who nodded and said, “I will find Li Na a place to sleep and spend some quiet time.”
“Thank you,” Dolly said. She left the groom-to-be in the parlor, still grinning, and went to find Yuen Kum.
She was dressed in a simple dress of linen, since she had been unable to bring her white wedding dress. Yuen Kum rushed to Dolly and embraced her. “Can you believe he found me?”
Dolly laughed softly. “You are a blessed woman.”
Yuen Kum drew away, her smile as bright as the sun. “It’s like you said, the Lord has watched out for us.”
And the Lord wanted Dolly here, in San Rafael. Today had confirmed that.
We lay for women’s rapid education
This cornerstone of everlasting foundation;
For our religious widening and civilization progressing
And peace of East and West we pray.
—Poem by Imperial Chinese Consul-General Huang Zunxian in
San Francisco, translated by J. H. Laughlin, cornerstone
ceremony for new mission home, August 1907
April 1908
Tien cracked open the office door at their home in Oakland, interrupting Dolly’s thoughts as she finished an entry in the mission home ledger. “The buggies are here.”
Dolly looked up from the ledger, where she had just entered the sixtieth record of a rescued slave girl during their time outside of San Francisco. The thick ledger was the same one she had rescued from 920 before the fire swept through Sacramento Street two years before. She’d left a few blank spaces between some of the entries, hoping to add successful endings to the failed rescue attempts.
“All right, I’m coming.” She rose and closed the ledger, then packed it into a satchel on the already cleared-off desk.
“I can carry it,” Tien said. “You’ll sit in the first buggy with Li Na and Kum Quai.” The two former brides had become close friends over the past two years.
Dolly nodded, but her mind was wrapped up in the words she had just penned: “We heard of this unfortunate slave girl, and we tried to rescue her. But the owner of the den was warned. You see, even away from San Francisco, they know who Fahn Quai is. By the time we arrived, she’d been spirited away, and we couldn’t find her. This blank space below will hopefully be filled with news of her eventual recovery.”
After living in San Rafael, Dolly had again moved the Chinese girls and women to Oakland, to a rented house. Requests for rescues continued to trickle in. For some of them, her team traveled hundreds of miles, reaching such places as Oroville, Marysville, Pacific Grove, Bakersfield, Oakland, and back to San Francisco. The highbinders had found new locations to set up their dens and revive human trafficking.
Tien picked up the satchel and moved to the doorway, then paused. “Will you miss Oakland?”
Today was their final morning in that city. They had spent the last week sorting and packing for their sojourn back to San Francisco and 920 Sacramento Street, where the mission home had been rebuilt.
So much had happened during the two years since the earthquake, yet it seemed to Dolly as if she’d just blinked her eyes. “I’ll miss it, but I can’t wait to get back home,” she replied, and she meant it. “And you have college to look forward to. I can’t believe the time has come.”
Tien would be leaving at the end of the summer to attend college back east at a private girls’ school, Stevens School, in Philadelphia. Her sponsor, Horace C. Coleman, had offered to pay for her schooling. “
Soon, I’ll return to you, and you’ll see a new Tien,” she said.
Dolly joined Tien in the doorway and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. “Don’t change too much, my friend.”
By the time they stepped off the ferry in San Francisco, Dolly felt as if they had been gone from the city for a decade. As they traveled up the hill, new construction dominated every street.
Chinatown had been rebuilt—risen again out of its own ashes. She’d read in the newspapers that the city of San Francisco had tried to curb the reclaiming of the land by the Chinese, hoping to avoid the infiltration of the tong. Despite those efforts, the Chinese still owned one-third of Chinatown. And the remaining two-thirds had been rented out by landlords to the Chinese.
When their hired buggy reached the base of Sacramento Street, Dolly told the driver she wanted to walk the rest of the way. He stopped, and she and Tien stepped out. Dolly had been sent sketches of the new mission home, but this was the first time she would see it in person. Her breath stalled as she gazed up the hill.
Right in the same location, on the same corner, a five-story square building had been constructed.
“That’s it,” Dolly breathed. “Home.”
Gone was the elegant structure of the former mission home, replaced by the boxy architecture of the new home. The brown brick building rose from the former destruction, majestic in its own way. Many of the original bricks had been used, and their singed and partly melted edges speckled the building like battle scars.
The girls and women in the other buggies reached the building. After climbing out and unloading their belongings, they waited for Dolly to catch up.
“Miss Cameron,” a voice boomed behind her.
She turned to see a police officer striding toward her.
“I thought you were arriving today,” Officer Cook said. He was the same, yet different. His mustache was grayer, his shoulders leaner, and his limp more pronounced. He tossed his cigarette away.
Dolly grinned. “Officer Cook, you’re still here.”
He stopped in front of her and smiled. The lines about his eyes were deeper, but his expression was as intense and knowledgeable as it had ever been. “I’ll always be here.” His gaze shifted. “And how are you, Tien Fu Wu?”
She dropped her eyes, but said, “I am fine, thank you.”
“What do you think of the new place?” Cook turned to look up the hill. “Quite a sight.”
“Yes,” Dolly agreed. “I would have thought you had retired, with the tong relocating to other cities.”
Cook cut his eyes to hers, and his jovial mood sobered. “It’s true that the earthquake destroyed much, Miss Cameron. You could say it laid wide open the underbelly of Chinatown. The destruction and fires uncovered passageways and tunnels of the opium dens and prostitution cribs, some of them three stories beneath the ground.” He took off his hat, scrubbed at his hair, then replaced his hat. “All of this was laid out for the city officials to witness. No one could brush the problems of Chinatown under the table any longer.”
Dolly remained very still, listening to every word.
“Chinatown has been rebuilt.” He paused. “In full. With both the good and the bad.”
“The war continues,” she whispered.
“I’m afraid so.” He lit another cigarette, and Dolly noticed the tremble in his hand. “We might live in the land of the free, but none of us are truly free as long as slavery exists in our society.”
A whistle sounded farther down the street, and Cook glanced over, then took a step back. “Call the station with anything you need. Anything at all.” He tipped his hat. Then, before striding away, he added, “Welcome home, my friends.”
Dolly watched after him until Tien linked her arm through hers.
“Let’s go,” Tien said in a determined voice. “Everyone is waiting for the director to unlock the front door.”
Dolly’s throat felt tight with unanswered questions she had for Officer Cook. “All right. I’m ready,” she told Tien.
Together they walked up the last part of the hill. The group of women and girls parted as Dolly moved to the front door. The board members were waiting for her, and, with smiles, they presented her with the key. Dolly and her daughters finally had their own place again, at the same beloved location—a place that would continue to be a beacon of light and hope to all who sought refuge and healing.
The board had been able to save the original double doors, so it was with nostalgia that Dolly fit the key into the lock and turned it. The last time she had stepped through these doors was on the night of the earthquake, when she’d rescued the guardianship papers. As she walked inside, the scent of new wood and fresh paint greeted her. Miss Ferree followed, then soon the rest. The chatter among the girls faded as everyone looked around. The place was well built and beautiful in its own way. It was a different home now, but one that would soon become beloved, Dolly was sure. An elegant staircase of dark wood rose from the main level, winding up to the top of the house. Wood-paneled walls were broken up by windows that looked out onto the street and brought in plenty of light.
It was plain that loving care and time had been poured into the interior. The wooden floors gleamed, and the place had been decorated with Chinese bronzes, embroideries, intricate carvings, a porcelain elephant, and brass ornaments. Other Christian organizations had donated elegant furnishings, rugs, and draperies.
Jiao’s and Lonnie’s excited voices raised above the rest, combined with Leung’s and Dong Ho’s footsteps as they pounded up the staircase in search of the best bedrooms. Dolly let them bask in their joy. She had no desire to curb the girls’ enthusiasm, even if alterations in bedroom assignments might have to be made later.
Dolly walked through the house at a much slower pace, admiring the final touches and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for the combined effort of rebuilding and decorating. A brand-new oak table sat in the parlor, where Dolly could meet with visitors and interview potential grooms. She made her way to the set of stairs in the back of the house, which went from the top floor to the basement. She took a few minutes to examine the basement, satisfied that the tunnel was still in place. A secret way out if needed.
Officer Cook’s warning had been clear. Dolly’s daughters would still need to be protected.
She climbed the back stairs, pausing on each level, then walked the floors. The scents of newness permeated the air, from fresh linens on the beds, to the new pine wall paneling, to the calcimine whitewash on the walls and ceilings. Once she reached the top floor, she walked through a bedroom connecting to a rooftop alcove.
Outside, Dolly turned in a slow circle, taking in the whole of San Francisco, much of it under construction. She was home at last. Finally, they could move forward with plans that had been put on hold for the past couple of years, such as raising funds for the babies’ home and finding more sponsors for the older girls to attend college.
For just a moment, Dolly reflected on Charles Bazatas. There had been scant communication between them since Dolly had left Philadelphia four years ago. And that was how it should be. She had her work, and he had his. Today wasn’t a day to reflect on the past and what might have been, but to look toward the future and enjoy the blessings of the present.
Dolly took one last look over the sloping city of San Francisco. The entire landscape had changed. Gone were the burned-out hulls of buildings, replaced by newer structures. Streets had been cleared of rubble, and there was no sign of the ash that had once covered every surface. It was as if the city had been given a new beginning. As Dolly stood on the rooftop alcove, she made a resolve to begin the next chapter of her life with renewed hope for a better future. There was no need to dwell on the losses and failures of the past. With an open heart, she would follow the Lord’s guidance.
“Dozens of bright-eyed Chinese girls patter gaily about in their black blouse-and-trouser costumes,
playing at housework, or working at their play with childish absorption, laughing, romping, singing, full of the joy of life and the blessing of freedom . . . they are happy. It takes only a few minutes’ walk through the Home to see that the Mission’s work of rescuing these girls from slavery has lit the light of gratitude in all their eyes, and that they all, who were friendless, have found in Miss Cameron a friend.”
—E. French Strother, The California Weekly, February 26, 1909
April 14, 1908
Dolly opened the double doors of the Occidental Mission Home to those she and the board had invited to Dedication Day. The spring weather had cooperated, and only a few clouds trailed across the sky. All morning, well wishes had been delivered by telegram and letters from friends too far away to attend.
Since returning to San Francisco, the girls and women had put their time to good use. They had sewed cushions, made curtains for the upper rooms, prepared desserts for the guests, and decorated with vines and flowers the chapel room where the annual board meeting would be held for the first time in this building.
As the chapel began to fill, Dolly noted that every board member was in attendance, as well as Dr. and Mrs. Condit, the founder of the home’s original board. Other notables such as the Chinese and Japanese consuls attended, along with Chung Sai Yut Po, the editor of a Chinese newspaper.
But the most esteemed guests in Dolly’s mind were the former residents of the mission home. Dolly greeted Mei Lien with a warm hug. She’d brought her husband, Huan Sun, and their two children.
“It’s good to see you, Lo Mo,” Mei Lien whispered in her ear.
The affectionate title made Dolly smile. Being on the receiving end of Mei Lien’s respect was truly an honor.
When they withdrew from their embrace, Dolly took the youngest child into her arms. “She’s growing so fast.” The child grabbed for the brooch on Dolly’s blouse, and she laughed.
Mei Lien smiled. “She thinks everything is hers.”
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown Page 34