May Chow

These letters chronicles the more than sixty year friendship between Doris Darnell and May Chow, both graduates of Bryn Mawr College class of 1939. Directly following their graduation, Chow returned to China and began teaching English. Darnell remained in Pennsylvania where she married and began a family. Only a few letters from this period survive, all of which are from Chow to Darnell. In the following decades- the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s- there was little to no correspondence between the two women. Darnell ascribes these “blackout periods” to the Communist takeover of China and the subsequent Cultural Revolution. However, their communication slowly resumed in the 1970’s and then became regularized after Chow’s trip to Bryn Mawr for their 40th class reunion in 1979. Letters were then sent back and forth between the two women, generally arriving once a month, with few gaps in contact from that point onward.

In the 1990’s, following Chow’s wishes, Darnell began to transcribe and/or excerpt letters from May, while destroying the original handwritten copies. Therefore, letters sent from Chow between 1979 and 1998 exist only in Darnell’s typed form. She stopped this practice of transcription in 1998 and the remaining letters, going up to 2005, exist as Chow’s handwritten originals. Eventually, Chow also sent her collection of letters to Darnell which she had saved over the years, so both sides of the correspondence remain intact. Other letters in the collection include correspondence between Darnell and Fred and Ruby Chow, May’s brother and sister-in-law, whom Darnell met while visiting Hong Kong in 1986. Darnell and her husband returned to China again in 1988 and 1993, though Chow never again visited America after her 1979 visit. Finally, a photo album and a loose photo collection exist of Darnell and Chow together at their Bryn Mawr reunion and later in China. Other photos exist of Chow’s extended family and friends, some from an early period in her life, which capture the Chinese setting well.

Several different typed versions of a short biography by Darnell on May Chow exist in the collection. These contain details about Chow’s life and her family, some mention of the historical context in which the letters were written, and recollections of their visits with one another both in America and China. The letters themselves are interesting in that they chronicle two women’s parallel lives in two very different countries. The relationship is remarkable for its longevity, suggested also in the breadth of time and information covered in their correspondence. The letters for the most part maintain a marked interiority; most often discussing the gradual changes in their family constructs, home or job locations, health concerns and mutual friends. This collection also provides the unusual benefit of having both sides of the conversation present, as Darnell and Chow’s correspondence are both intact.