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Wu Yi-Fang was born, the youngest of three children, in Wuchang city, located in the Hubei Province in China. As she was born in the winter, her father, Wu Shou-Xun (吴守训) nicknamed her “冬生”, which translates as “Winter Born”. Wu came from a well-educated family: her grandfather was a magistrate in Jingzhou, Hubei, her father served as the director of Yali Bureau in Hubei, as well as a magistrate of Dangyang County, and her uncle was a famous scholar in Hangzhou. Wu was educated from a young age, studying at home with her brother at the age of seven, then attending Hangzhou’s Hongdao Girls’ School, Shanghai’s Qiming Girls’ School, and Suzhou’s Jinghai Girls’ School with her sister. As she frequently changed schools and moved cities, her experiences fuelled her curiosity about the world outside her home. With a scholarly family background, Wu was encouraged to bind her feet, like her mother had done in her youth. She would later realize she could not continue to pursue education with bound feet and began unbinding and lengthening her feet.

In 1909, Wu’s father was framed by his boss for “embezzling public funds”. In distress over the lost funds, he committed suicide by throwing himself into a river. Wu Yi-Fang left her school, and the following year, she and her family moved to her mother’s hometown in Hangzhou, relying on relatives to support them. After a year, they moved again to Shanghai with Wu’s uncle, Chen Shu-Tong (陈叔通) and his family. On October 10th, 1911, the XinHai Revolution broke out. Without hope of emigrating out of the country to escape the many uprisings and revolts at the time, her brother, Wu Yi-Chu (吴贻榘) committed suicide by jumping into a river. Exacerbated by the deaths of her husband and her son, Wu’s mother, who had fallen ill, passed away shortly after. The night before her mother’s funeral, Wu’s sister, Wu Yi-Fen (吴贻芬) hung herself in despair. At the age of 19, Wu’s brother, mother, and sister had passed away, all within a month.