St Croix River Road Ramblings

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Chinese Scroll 1910 Uncle Eddie Paulson

Update:  Translation of scroll from Chinese friend:

  I am not sure about the small black characters either.   Guess that your Great Uncle's Chinese name be Bao Der-Jiao.   In Chinese, the name was written respectfully as Bao (Mr.)  Der-Jiao.  Also, wonder that there are more characters that were torn out at the bottom.   The large characters " “Believe and be joined together with Jesus” might not be a complete phrase.   It could be  “Believing and joining together with Jesus (gains eternal life)” - just my speculation. 

 I’m not sure about the small characters on the right, but it has something to do with Mr. Bao and either “moral lessons” or “German lessons.”  

In cleaning at Mom's house, we came across a small suitcase labeled E. M. Paulson.  Edwin Marion Paulson was grandma Hannah Paulson Hanson's brother.   He was known to us as the missionary to China who visited once a year from his home in Wesley IA.  

Uncle Eddie was the educated person in the family.  He went to college in the late 1800s, and became a school teacher.  In 1902, feeling the need for adventure and the wish to act on his Christian beliefs, he volunteered to be a teacher in China for missionary children--to teach an 8-grade school in Ping Ling.  

He went to China in 1903, stayed for 7 years returning in 1910 and took some more college classes and became a college professor in a religious college.  When it folded in the Great Depression, he and his wife, Grace Skow, moved to her family's farm in Wesley, Iowa, where lived and passed away in their late 80s (about 1970).  

The suitcase holds some items he brought back with him from China in 1910.  Some silk clothes, some photos, some nick-knacks including an opium pipe and a few assorted items including a pair of shoes for a woman with bound feet. 

The first item I am trying to decipher is a torn scroll.  Photos included for my friends to help me translate.