Shanghai, China By May My mother was born in Shanghai, China. Her parents, my grandparents, met and married in China. My grandfather, Ed Rice, was a surgeon in Suzhou, a Methodist missionary surgeon. My grandmother, MaryO Holler, came over from South Carolina to teach school at McTyere School in Shanghai. Suzhou and Shanghai are close to each other, and there weren’t many white people in China at that time, and they were both Methodists - so it’s unsurprising that they met. McTyere School was named after a Tennessee Methodist who helped fund Vanderbilt University. Mr. McTyere made friends with some Chinese students who were studying divinity at Vanderbilt and decided to build this Methodist school to educate Chinese girls in Shanghai. Many wealthy Chinese families sent their girls to the school from 1890-1949. The most famous
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