User:PaulaMessina/The Garners of Shanghai

The Garners of Shanghai ...

The Garners of Shanghai: A Novel of American Missionaries in China, 1901-1927 (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform *) was written by Cameo Archer as a fictionalized account of the life her grandparents led as missionaries in China. She has recalled the stories, read the letters, and researched that era of Chinese history to write this saga featuring the Garners, who experience the same challenges her grandparents faced.

Plot:

In the Garners of Shanghai, Dr. Lowell and Vera Garner arrive in China as newlyweds in September, 1901, one year after the Boxers tried to massacre all the Christians in their country, Westerners and Chinese alike. The Garners proceed to Ningpo where they learn the language and the missionary work they've come to do. There Lowell Garner falls in love with the poverty stricken people he sees and Vera, who hoped to remain celibate, succumbs and, to her horror, becomes pregnant but fearful of the disease rampant in the country. To illustrate, one of the established missionary women suddenly dies of cholera. Loving encouragement calms Vera down and she survives childbirth in time to move from her new home by canal boat to Shaohsing where Lowell becomes principal of the Baptists' school for Chinese ministers. Vera gets used to having Chinese servants run her household and take care of her children.

The original school proves not advanced enough for the Baptists' Chinese ministers and a college campus begins to rise near the lively port of Shanghai. Lowell Garner supervises the filling in of the swampland the Baptists buy, also the construction of the school's buildings, the first of which is a home for the Garners and their now three children, another move. The school opens and the Garners leave for America, their first return visit to their native land in six years.

The Garners' oldest child, Irma, first sees her homeland when she's five years old, feels for her mother struggling as she takes care of her children without servants. Irma turns against school because Americans think she's Chinese simply from being born in that country. Vera Garner has her purse and all her money stolen and the family has to camp out in the woods while Lowell Garner convalesces from exhaustion at a resort. When they all return to China, Vera's good friend, Gertrude, comes with them to do mission work as well.

Presbyterian missionaries start a grammar school and high school for Western children in CHina, Shanghai American School, and Irma and her brother Harold board there When they graduate from SAS they return to the United States for college. Dr. Lowell Garner, who has taught religion a Shanghai Baptist College, is asked to take over the presidency of the school. He's a man dedicated to compromise, so it's expected that he will keep the Northern and Southern Baptists who cooperated in founding the school from tearing it apart with their quarrels over doctrine. The Garners now host couples who come to China to do missionary work. From one of them Vera learns that what she does for the women who attend the college is a paid position now at colleges in America and has the title of dean. She decides she wants very much to have the salary and the title. Because she's married -- this is the nineteen twenties -- the men on the board of the college are angered that she's applied and turn down her request.

Vera becomes ill, doesn't recover and is sent to America, a more healthy place to get well. She's glad to go because her longtime cook has embarrassed and offended her by taking a second wife. In the United States a doctor tells her she'll die if she returns to China. The students at the college try to riot but Garner's calmness keeps them contained. He takes leave and comes to join Vera for one of their daughters' wedding but returns to China when an army threatens the school. Only the deep love this couple has for one another reunites them in the end.

Characters:

Dr. Lowell Garner DD, newly ordained. He helps found Shanghai Baptist College and as its president turns in into a University.

Vera Garner, Dr. Garner's wife. She wants so much to help the Chinese she doesn't want to have children, but they come. She has the idea for a working mission for women and counsels missionary women as well as the women college students.

Lucille Elgin sails to China for the first time on the same ship as the Garners do and becomes their longtime friend.

Helen Corbin greets the Garners when they first arrive in Shanghai. She later marries the elder Dr. Crawford after his third wife dies.

The elder Dr. Crawford is a third generation missionary in China and is translating the Bible into Chinese.

Mrs. Crawford, his third wife, is the daughter of the first Baptist missionary to the Chinese, Dr. Carey. She dies suddenly of cholera.

Dr. Shepard, a missionary a few years older than Dr. Garner, has the idea for Shanghai Baptist college.

Mrs. Shepard his wife, a friend of Vera's.

Dr. Frank Crawford, a medical doctor, son of the elder Dr. Crawford and his third wife.

Nellie Crawford, a missionary nurse in Dr. Crawford's Shaohsing hospital that he marries.

Leontine Dahl, Dr. Garner's secretary at the college.

Pat, her longtime friend.

Irma Faith Garner, oldest child of the Garners.

Harold Garner, their second child, good at changing his college major.

Dorothy Garner, their third child, who marries during the book.

Evan Garner, their fourth and last. A mischievous child, he gets thrown out of SAS.

Dr. Scott, a Baptist missionary in Japan, marries Lucille Elgin when she's in her forties, his second wife.

Dr. Lin, vice president of the school under Garner, a Communist.

Less Luck, the Garner's longtime cook who takes a second wife when it's uncertain whether the first has died.

The Martins, next door neighbors of the Garners on the campus.

Miss Kinney and Miss Watts, missionaries in the city of Shanghai.