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TAIPEI AIR STATION |
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My sister Vonnie is shown passing through the final barrier on the airport tarmac as she prepares to board the CAT flight for Hong Kong in the late summer of 1956. From Hong Kong, she would travel to Vancouver, B.C., Canada on Canadian Pacific Airlines where our uncle from Washington state would meet her. Vonnie was accompanied by the missionary lady in the green dress to Hong Kong, but then traveled to Vancouver alone. |
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My father always enjoyed his 2-week active duty stint with the US Marine Corps. Here he is pictured with an unidentified US Marine colleague, a Chaplain, in April 1960. Reserve duty for my father was generally in southern Taiwan in combination with US and Chinese Nationalist Marine Corps. Shortly after this photograph was taken their occurred one of the most endearing memories of my life. My father sent a post card to Morrison Academy where I was completing my 2nd grade, the first of my 11 consecutive years at Morrison. In the post card, he explained that he would be flying back to Hsinchu from southern Taiwan at the conclusion of his active duty exercises and that he would fly over Morrison Academy on a certain day at 5pm and he would drop something for me from the aircraft. This seemed a little too hard to believe, but I took him at his word and thus waited on that date and time, along with many interested schoolmates, out on the large circular lawn area at the front of the Morrison campus. 5pm came and went and I was getting nervous that the flyover would not happen or that I would miss it, as dinner was served at 5:30pm and I knew no exceptions would be made to stay outside. Well, about 5:25 I heard the drone of a light aircraft and suddenly a 2 seat Piper Cub in military green colors appeared. As it flew over the campus my father leaned out of the right passenger window and dropped a small bag attached to a little parachute. It fluttered down beautifully and I gleefully ran to retrieve it. Inside the bag were all sorts of candies which my father had purchased at the PX for my 3rd sister, Meris, and I. Was I the envy of my schoolmates. But, per the rules of the woman who ran the lower boys dorm, I had to equally share my portion of the goodies with all the other 17 boys. Several Morrisonians that I spoke to at the 2002 school reunion still fondly remembered that experience.
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In mid-December 1958 our family left Taiwan for a short furlough in the United States after a 5-year missionary term on the island. We were sent off by numerous local church friends at the Hsinchu railway station. I was none too pleased at having to dress up for the occasion. After taking the train from Hsinchu to Taipei, we flew to Okinawa where we transferred to a Transocean Airlines Boeing Stratocruiser that flew to Los Angeles via Guam, Wake and Honolulu. We finally arrived in Superior, Wisconsin on Christmas Eve1958 to spend the holidays with my oldest sister Mayling, her husband and young son. |
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My father took this photograph at the Hsinchu railway station in 1955 as my 2nd and 3rd sister, Vonnie and Meris are about to leave by train to Taichung where they attended boarding school at Morrison Academy. Our faithful green Chevy truck provides a great visual backdrop for this picture of my sisters and I. |
