Nora Hsiung Chu

Hsiung was born in Hunan province in 1902 (some sources give 1900 as the date),[1] the daughter of Chinese philanthropist and politician Hsiung Shi-ling (Xiong Xiling). Her mother, Chu Ch'i-hui (Zhu Qihui), was a leader of women's and charitable organizations.[2][3] After her mother died in 1931, her father married Mao Yen-wen (1898–1999).[4]

Nora and Rose Hsiung, from a 1922 newspaper.

Nora Hsiung and her sister Rose were educated in the United States.[5] Nora attended Mount Ida School, Mount Holyoke College[6][7] and Barnard College.[8][9] While in Boston, she was in the cast of two short plays produced by Chinese students to benefit Chinese relief work.[10] While she was in New York, she was photographed doing carpentry ahead of the 1925 Oriental Bazaar, a benefit for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.[11] She completed a bachelor's degree at Barnard in 1926; she also earned a master's degree in 1927 from Teachers College Columbia University.[12][3]

On her return to China, Nora Hsiung Chu served on the staff of the National College of Rural Reconstruction.[3] She toured European and American child welfare programs and gave a series of lectures in China about what she found, and how Western ideas might be adapted for Chinese use.[13]

In 1942, Chu became secretary general of the National Association for Refugee Children, an organization directed by Soong Mei-ling and based in Chongqing during and after World War II.[12] Chu was responsible for overseeing dozens of orphanages, schools, and programs for child refugees.[14][15][16] She was described as "the leading Chinese child-welfare specialist" after she chaired a national conference in Shanghai in 1946.[17] She went to Great Britain on a United Nations fellowship in 1949.[18]

Chu was living in Taiwan when she served on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women when it met in Geneva, Switzerland in 1956.[19] Later that year, she crossed the United States, visiting educators in New York City, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, West Lafayette, Berkeley, and Seattle along the way.[18] In 1967, Chu attended the World Girl Guide Association meeting in Canada.[20] She participated in the Regional Meeting of Teacher Educators in Asia, held in the Philippines in 1969.[21]

Nora Hsiung married Chu Ling (also known as Lynn Chu), a Chinese air force officer. They had five children;[18][22] four of their children lived their adult lives in the United States, and the fifth lived in Taiwan.[23][24] Her husband was director of the Astronautical Society of the Republic of China, and was involved in international meetings on the "peaceful uses of space".[25][26] She died in 1977, aged 75 years.[27]

Her younger sister, Rose Hsiung, married British author Robert Payne in 1942; they divorced in 1951.[28] Her granddaughter Linda Hsiung Dech[24] was a founder of the Minnesota Breastfeeding Coalition, and in 2019 became executive director of the Minnesota Milk Bank for Babies.[29][30]