It’s interesting to contemplate all the differences that might have been one’s life if one’s grandmother had married differently. I’m looking through my mom’s mom’s scrapbook from college in Wooster, Ohio, and came across a page with a guy’s photo, his name and a dried flower, from around 1911.

My grandfather came to live with Mamoo’s (that’s what we called my gramma) family during college. It was a thing for missionary families living in China to board with other families for their American education. Herbert and Ruth married in 1919, when Mamoo (Ruth) was 26. They returned to China, where both had grown up, until 1927, when my mom was three. They settled for the rest of their lives (my grandparents) in Southern California. My grandfather was a doctor both in China and in So Cal. Mom still remembered being carried on her Chinese Amma’s back as a toddler.