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whirlwind wedding was planned around the sailing of the ship on February
10th. They wore identical brown traveling suits that neither knew that
the other had purchased. After a wedding luncheon of broth, a meat course
with plenty of vegetables, and a chicken salad, Lou and Bert caught
the 2:00 train to San Francisco where they would sail on the 11th of
February for China.
The Hoovers settled in the city of Tientsin. Here Lou busied herself
making a comfortable home for Bert. This was
the beginning of a commitment that she would carry through on in many
locations all over the world. She also explored the city, and was interested
in Chinese culture. Lou described the foreign settlement at Tientsin
as "a series of plots assigned to different nations."
Lou Hoover spent her time exploring Peking, Tientsin, and the countryside
around her. She visited markets and palaces, and she developed a keen
sense of what represented the best of Chinese artistry. She also learned
the Chinese language. She secured a tutor and
learned to speak and write Chinese. Herbert Hoover said that "the
English speaking Chinese in town always addresses her in Chinese and
me in English." (HH about LHH in Personal Correspondence File,
LHH Papers).
In early June of 1900, reports told of Boxers within
a few miles of Tientsin. This uprising came about because the reforms
ordered by the young Emperor did not sit well with the old ruling class
in China. The Empress Dowager was prevailed upon by the angry Mandarins
to remove the young Emperor from the throne. At the same time an anti-foreign
sentiment sprang up in China. The Chinese believed that there was too
much encroachment of foreign powers on China's territory and on Chinese
life. Floods and crop failures also plagued the Chinese at this time
that they also blamed on foreigners. Thus the Ei Ho Chiang movement
(The Closed Fist) arose. The name was loosely translated into Boxers.
Their objective was to drive all foreigners into the sea, and kill the
Chinese tainted by association with the foreigners.
During this Boxer uprising, the
Hoovers were in Tientsin with about 800 people. Lou Hoover took her
turn patrolling the settlement at night; she also volunteered to work
in the hospital, and helped to build barricades. She was given the duty
of, "Chief Cowboy and Dairy Maid," since she took charge of
some cows and calves brought in from the countryside before the uprising.
Lou supervised the distribution of milk for children and the wounded.
She rode her bicycle around Tientsin. Once her front tire was struck
by bullets, but Lou didn't get upset. She took everything in stride.
"Lou exuded a casual everydayness in times of danger or trouble."
(Dare Stark McMullin speech to establish Lou Henry Hoover memorial Forests
and Wildlife Sanctuary, for Girl Scouts, 1944. In Hoover Scrapbooks
Album 46.) She even wrote to her friend Evelyn Wight Allan that she
had really missed something by not being in Tientsin that summer!
During the siege in the summer
of 1900, the Boxers killed 233 foreigners, mainly missionaries and
their children, and 30,000 Chinese Christians. It was no wonder that
Charles Henry was relieved to receive the one word telegram which proclaimed
that Lou and Herbert were "Safe." Their deaths had already
been published in a New York paper.
The Hoovers left China in August of 1900 when relief
troops came. They sailed to London. Most people would have tried to
put the experiences of that China summer out of their minds, but Lou
began instead to organize her notes and diaries in order to write up
her experiences while they were still fresh. She wrote a manuscript
on her China experiences during the Boxer rebellion but she never published
it. She did however publish an article entitled, "The
Late Dowager Empress."
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