Pamela in Peitaiho – Summer Retreats in Old China
Posted: August 3rd, 2012 | 12 Comments »My thanks to Christine Maiwald of Germany who is currently investigating her illustrious ancestor Hermann Breuer, formerly of Melchers and Co. in Shanghai and a well known member of the city’s German community (any information on Hermann do let me know and I’ll pass along). Christine was also kind enough to pass along to me some memories of Pamela Werner (in case you’ve been living in a cave and don’t know, she’s the tragic murder victim in Midnight in Peking) that an old friend of hers had from the former popular northern Chinese summer holiday retreat of Peitaiho (no Beidaihe). Many foreigners in northern China including Peking and Tientsin decamped to Peitaiho every summer to escape the furnace like heat of the cities. ETC Werner had a summer house there and so did DCI Dennis, the policeman from Tientsin who investigated Pamela’s murder. Christine’s friend’s memories are interesting as they also shed light on just how many rumours were flowing around about who killed Pamela – it wasn’t her boyfriend, he had an alibi. Anyway, here’s her memories below and, by the way, if someone’s looking for a good research project on old China gathering together all the old stories, characters and pictures of Peitaiho would be a great way to spend some time!
…a friend born in Tientsin in 1921 whether she knew Pamela – and indeed she knew her from Peitaiho where they had adjoining holiday homes. She remembered that Pamela was sweet with lots of freckles and at the time thought of as a bit “frivolousâ€. She flirted with the boys on the beach and she already had a boyfriend who was later suspected of having murdered her. The rumour being that the motive was jealousy – because of the heart.
Peitaiho – the view from Butiriff’s Tower
My American Board missionary grandparents had a summer home at Pietaiho….it was featured in the August 1940 issue of American Home Magazine. Copy of the article is framed and today hangs in my father’s home in Baltimore. Dad spent many a summer in that house….they left Tungchow in 1941…never to return to Pietaiho. Wonder what happened to the house?!
Unlikely it’s still there but as Peitaiho (now Beidaihe) is now a popular tourism place, while part is used by the Communist leaders as their summer retreat you never know. Any photos of the old place?
The American Home article has pictures…just a few, but exterior and interior….
Noticed this on ebay – http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUGUST-1940-The-American-Home-Magazine-EXCELLENT-CONDITION-/270923512652?_trksid=m263&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D31%26pmod%3D180904669045%26ps%3D50
I recently read this post while combing the internet for information on the glories of Peitaiho. I was fascinated especially to note the above interchange between Hugh Robinson and Paul French. I, too, have family that had a summer place in Peitaiho during the early part of the 20th Century. I have become very curious about the place, so I jumped at the opportunity to locate and buy a copy of the Aug. 1940, American Home Magazine. Fortune favored me, and it has now arrived. But there is no mention of nor pictures of Peitaiho. I wonder if Huge Robinson might see this post and take a gander at the issue he referred to and probably has to see what that issue actually is that has a feature story and pictures of Peitaiho.
I found this site while looking for photos of Peitaiho for a family history I’m writing. In 1905, my great-grandmother, Elma Gordon began to serve at a Quaker mission in Tientsin, China. During the hot summer months, she and her daughter, Edith, spent time at Peitaiho, a summer resort popular with foreigners living in northern China. This is where, in July 1910, Edith (age 21) met Robert Wood Clack, a teacher of mathematics at Chihli Provincial College in Paotingfu, a city in Chihli Province in northern China. They were married March 21, 1911 at the Methodist Mission Hsiku in Tientsin, China
I do know that Clack wrote a number of rather lyrical, and now long out of date, books on China and Japan as well as Chinese poetry translations that were considered very good at the time….I think Clack was a Rhodes scholar from Iowa before moving to China. There was a nice picture of him in the American newspapers in the 1920s dressed in Chinese scholars robes – I’m sure you’ve seen it but, if not, do email me on paul@chinarhyming.com and I’ll send it to you.
Writing an article for the summer addition (August) of Tianjin Plus and decided to do it on Peitaiho as an interlude in a series I’m doing on people growing up in Tientsin. Peitaiho features in all the memoirs and questionnaires to which I’ve had responses. Any pictures you may have from public domain or for which you can grant permission?
Reading MM Kaye and about her staying there around 1932-34. Anyone know of her?
I’m researching an ancestor of mine, Alfred J. Eggeling, a manager at the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in Peking. He was born and grew up in Edinburgh, emigrated to the German colony at Kiatschou in 1899, and became fluent in Chinese. Forced to choose between loyalty to Britain or Germany at the outbreak of WW1, he went into hiding to avoid deportation when China joined the Allies in 1917. The press made frequent allegations of alleged collusion between Chinese authorities and prominent members of the German community that enabled him to avoid arrest. One report puts him in Peitaiho in 1919 but he had gone by the time police arrived.
I wonder if anyone has come across any reference to this gentleman in the course of their own researches? If so I’d be delighted to hear from you.
I am trying to find information on what may have happened to Gladys and W.J. Hawkings after 1938. She and her parents summered in Peitaiho . Mr. Hawkings apparently worked for Marden & Co. in Shanghai and also served as Chairman of the British Residence Assoc.
And was appointed Chairman of the Emergency Transport Committee. I believe that he may have been an accountant
I have a long letter from Gladys, documenting the Japanese invasion. They lived in Weihaiwie. Any info would be appreciated. or other avenues of research.
Thank you.
Don Van Fossen
This is for Don Van Fossen: According to a family tree from Ancestry, Gladys Ethelwyn Hawkings (born Shanghai) married in NZ in Nov. 1945 Eylard Frederik Maurits Van Hall and in 1953, leaving from England, the couple intended to take up residence in India. Gladys died in Cirencester in December 2001. Her father, William James Hawkings, had left China for NZ in 1952 and died in Darjeeling in 1965, 5 years after his wife had died in NZ. Gladys had two children, but their names are listed as “private” on the tree. Hope this helps a bit, Catherine