| A BROTHER’S KISS By: Arthur Nesse | 4/24/02 |
In the fall of 1931 school started for the three Nesse boys on a beautiful mountain called Kuling (now called Lushan) in Kiangsi province, central China. At the time, Gerhard was 17, Henry would be 15 on September 10 and I was 9 years old in the 4th grade.
Kuling is some 5000 feet above sea level overlooking the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake, well known in Chinese fable and history. The school was called “ASK”, denoting “American School Kikungshan”. Kikungshan, ASK’s normal location, was also on a beautiful mountain. It is in Honan province, an overnight steamer trip and half day train
trip to the north and west of Kuling. Ki (chicken in Chinese), kung (male) shan (mountain) — Rooster Mountain — is perhaps some 3000 feet above sea level and, as was true of Kuling, has cool, pleasant summers with only moderate snowfall and spectacular mountain vistas in all directions.
For the school year 1931-1932 and for two subsequent school years ASK was forced to seek a location reasonably secure from the Communist armies that were at that time ravaging the Honan area as a part of their famous “long march” fleeing the Kuomingtang government forces en route to a refuge in remote Yunnan province of northwestern China. Also located on Kuling was another American school “KAS” (Kuling American School) serving a mix of missionary children and the children of business people located in the
commercial cities of Shanghai and Hankow on the Yangtze river.
KAS had fine school facilities and perhaps 100 students while ASK was smaller and occupied a Kuling summer hotel and associated areas with tennis courts, an athletic field and improvised classroom facilities. Both schools benefited through competitive sports
(soccer, baseball, track and tennis), some cooperative programs in music, theater and lectures as well as joint Sunday church services that included school faculty and a few year-around non-Chinese residents on Kuling.
There were, of course, differences. The more worldly KAS environment featured real dances, as distinct from the boy-girl Saturday night folk-type dances at ASK. On the other hand, the Sunday-observant preacher one Sunday looked straight at the “wordly” ASK contingent and thundered against profaning the Sabbath with boisterous games of “capture the flag”, baseball and picnics. The Lutheran authorities who ran ASK decided to
disregard the message, perhaps fearing what w e e w recreations would emerge if they forbade our normal Sunday activities.
It was to this environment that Gerhard, Henry and I arrived in September 1931 after a sad leave-taking of our mother, Danielle, who was terminally ill with cancer in Sinyang, Honan. Danielle came to China in 1909 directly from Norway as a medical missionary
sponsored by the Norwegian Missionary Society. On Kikungshan for vacation time she met Hans Martin Nesse, originally from her home place in Bremnes, Norway, but now a missionary from the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America centered in Minnesota. They had not seen each other for fourteen years when they met, fortuitously or calculated I cannot determine, in China and were married on Kikungshan in 1913. Both were about 30 years old at the time.
Danielle was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1929 and traveled to Beijing to the Rockefeller Medical Center there for surgery. She was relatively well from that time until the summer of 1931 when the cancer recurred and another trip to Beijing confirmed that no further treatment was possible. I remember eagerly meeting the train from Beijing when mother and father returned from this second trip to the Rockefeller Medical Center. Father was in the corridor leaving the train and I asked him; “Is mama going to be well again like last time?” He answered; “No Arthur, mama is coming home to die”, and he started to cry.
Going back to the summer of 1930 Gerhard took seriously ill with what was diagnosed then as amoebic dysentery. Those familiar with our family know that this disease, or perhaps other digestive parasite problems, was with him all his life and accounted for his early death at age 42. Despite dysentery, or perhaps because of it, Gerhard became an avid health and fitness practitioner in his high school years. He was a devotee of Charles Atlas whose ads for his health program showed a picture of his perfectly muscled physique with the banner: “From a 97 pound weakling to the world’s most perfectly developed man. `Dynamic Tension’ is all I need for you to be the same.”
ASK opened the 1930-1931 school year at its regular location on Kikung but moved to Kuling for the 1931-1932 year as has been described above. A story at this time is told by my friend and classmate from ASK, David Edwins, in his I’ve been to the Mountain
article of some ten years ago. A few words may have been changed but he won’t mind. “Looking East (from Kikung) over the endless mountain ridges I can’t help but remember the harrowing days and nights we experienced as students in 1930. That was the year we were threatened by the fleeing bandits and routed (Communist)
armies.
For two or three days we (ASK students and faculty) stood by ready to flee. The underclassmen were moved into the parlor at night rather than having them spread throughout the dorm. Each one of us had been issued a pillowcase to carry, which contained some clean clothes and food, should we have to move out at a moment’s
notice. We were prepared to leave day or night by fleeing down the mountain to the railroad station (3 miles by mountain trail and presumably secure due to a garrison of government troops) in case the bandits or retreating soldiers decided to come west
over the mountains to Kikung rather than continue on their way north via “San Li Tser”.
The girls were billeted on the third floor above us, and had similar arrangements and instructions about escaping. An overall warning system had been established. A series of signal fires were to be set by friendly Chinese lookouts on each ridge top between us and the village of San Li Tser, should the bandits or communists come toward Kikung. On sighting a fire on the farthest ridge, a second fire was to be set on the next ridge, and so on to Kikung. In this way, a warning was to be relayed to us to initiate the evacuation plan. Fortunately, we did not need to flee at the time. The bandits took another route. They swerved north, and normal school activity resumed once again.
During this time an insignificant episode comes to mind. Gerhard Nesse, Henry and Arthur’s older brother, was assigned as our group leader should we have to evacuate. He was to get us to the railroad station in the event we had to make a fast retreat. I can’t forget him, he was indefatigable. No matter what the conditions were, nothing was allowed to disrupt his person fitness regime. Here we were with lights out. We could be routed out momentarily. We had to keep quiet, certainly the situation was at a critical stage, but Gerhard Nesse was not to be deterred. As his usual regimen dictated, he
stripped down to his birthday suit and stood in the dark in front of an open window to go through his exercise routine. We, the under the underclass boys, early to bed were watching Gerhard go through all of these strange gyrations in his naked state. We were heaving in stifled laughter. Gerhard carried on. There was a knock on the door and a prompt “come in” from one of the beds. Much to Gerhard’s chagrin and embarrassment, there stood Miss Anna Anderson, the school matron at the time. Gerhard dove under the nearest bed. When she left, Gerhard crawled out from under the bed and started to take care of us with a handy umbrella. The thrashing didn’t hurt
anyone. Through the melee we were laughing louder and harder. So again Miss Anderson knocked no doubt to find out what all the noise was about. Again we answered “come in”. Gerhard took another dive under the bed. It was a no win situation. To the third or fourth grader it was a most hilarious moment. But fifty years later, in rethinking of this little insignificant sidelight, I have tried to understand our mental and emotional state at such a trying time. As children we had gone through many stressful experiences. Being separated from our parents during such times did not seem to add any difficulty among us. To us this was just another case of running from the bandits. We had been there before. There was no panic. We
could laugh and have fun even under such difficult circumstances. It was all routine. Today, thinking back, I wonder how we as adults would react under similar conditions.
When school time came in September 1931 it was decided that the boys should kiss their mother for the last time and proceed on to far away Kuling for the school year. Travel conditions at that time did not permit travel for a return home to Sinyang over the Christmas holidays or for the expected funeral. Note: After the 1931-1932 school year, father took the three of us to the U.S. The trip was
necessary because Gerhard was approaching age 18 and had to enter the US. before age 18 to avoid immigration quotas in place a the time. Father had failed to take out U.S. citizenship papers in his years before going to China as a missionary in 1910 so he was
technically still a citizen of Norway. Gerhard and Henry were admitted to Waldorf Academy in Forest City, Iowa for the 1932-1933 school year and I returned with my father to China and ASK at that time on Kuling.
Even though Gerhard and Henry were in the U.S. when the 1933 ASK Yearbook was published, both received favorable mention. The Yearbook describes Gerhard’s class as “spending their time profitably and enjoyably contending in debates on Caesar among themselves, and on other topics, as the independence of the Philippine Islands with other classes. Here the intellectual giant, Mr. G. Nesse, first revealed his great oratorical abilities which recently have won him
distinction in intellectual circles of the United States.” The “intellectual circles of the United States” no doubt referred to news of Gerhard’s associations in his last high school year completed at Waldorf Academy, Forest City, Iowa rather than at ASK.
Brother Henry was one of ten boys and just one girl who constituted the Freshman class at ASK in the 1931-32 school year. The 1933 Yearbook says of Henry; “— the class —shed a “bitter tear” for Mr. (Henry) Nesse (who) together with his gallant brother went to the
United States. Mr. Nesse was a philosopher and speaker of extraordinary abilities beside being a profound and vigorous thinker.”
For a mere fifth grader I was honored to be mentioned in the Yearbook even if only in the “Humor” section. “Phil: I heard you broke a tooth. How’d you do that? Arthur: Shifting gears on a lolly pop.” This humor item could have referred to me or to a number of my schoolmates: “We have a little boy in this school, we will not mention his name, who seems to do everything backwards. For instance, his nose runs and his feet smell.”
I now will return to our school year 1931-1932. Kuling mountain was famous for its magnificent sunsets reflecting from Poyang Lake
and the mountains and valleys beyond. As a boy just approaching ten, however, sunsets were not normally of great moment. The evening of February 2, however, displayed a scene that captured me. The sunset seemed a real life image of a picture in Hurlbut’s Bible Stories illustrating Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending from heaven. I thought almost absently that when mother died she could use that ladder. That night instead of my normal instant sleep I lay awake fantacizing on miraculous cures for mother’s cancer. It was not the thought of Biblical miracles which my
upbringing would have suggested but the idea that science and medicine might yet be effective and I would see her again. School the next day began as a normal school day but at mid-morning a messenger came to our fourth grade classroom and escorted me to the office of our principal, the Rev. Palmer Anderson. He looked grave and Henry was crying, unthinkable to me. Gerhard put his arms around me and said “mother died last night”. And then he kissed me.