(1926) Meeting of Dr. Sun Yat-sen

Oscar mentions in the document "I Experienced the Tragedy of the Bamboo Curtain"1 that he met Sun Yat-sen accredited with the founding of the Republic of China [verify]. This was apparently on or before the year 1927; we do not really know what year this was occurred or the details of the meeting.

Travels of Roy Jewett

On Roy 29 October 1919 Roy was issued a passport to travel to China via Canada. to do 'engineering work'. He was twenty-five years of age. His passport describes him as being five feet, ten inches tall with a high forehead, blue eyes, large mouth with thick lips, light brown hair, dark complexion, oval face. By November 17 he was in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and on that day he received a visa from the Chinese Consulate to travel to Peking.

Roy worked for the next several years in China. Family tradition relates that he worked, perhaps as head electrician, on the main hospital in Peking. According to Dollan Rinell Roy put in the first EKG machine in at the Peking hospital and that Edith and Margaret worked in the same hospital. Photos support at the very least his involvement with the building of the hospital.¹⁸

Roy traveled extensively in 1926 as documented in his passport. His passport contains a number of visas issued in Peking, and most issued 2 September, a very busy day in Peking for Roy. The country and date of issue of the various visas are:

Belgium: 2 September 1926
France: 2 September 1926
Germany (probably): 2 September 1926
United Kingdom: 2 September 1926
USSR (probably): [day difficult to read] September 1926
China (probably): 14 September 1926
Poland (possibly - to be translated): 22 [possibly September - to be translated] 1926
Manchuria: 23 September 1926
[To be translated - Cyrillic script] 23 [September possibly] [1926 - probably]
Czechoslovakia: [To be translated] 1926

Near to some of the visas are rubber stamp marks indicatig that Roy arrived in particular countries. Under what may be a Polish visa is a mark that may be dated 3 October. Under the French visa is a rubber stamp mark, though difficult to read, has the date of 15 October 1926. Under the United Kingdom visa is a mark that seems to be dated 18 October 1926. Associated with other visas are various marks that are difficult to read, but with some creative research may eventually be deciphered. All in all it seems that Roy traveled to or through various countries going from east to west. Evidently he took the trans-Manchurian railroad (which follows the same route as the Trans-Siberian between Chita and Moscow)¹⁷ from China through Russia and Europe. The distance from Peking to Moscow alone is 8,961 kilometers. It was a very long trip. Eventually he arrived in England. Possibly Roy took a ship to the USA from the United Kingdom, but this is a guess at this point. We do know that by the 21st of February 1927 he was in Tokyo, Japan because on that day he married Margaret Rinell at the American Consulate.

Terrible News from Home

Hellen learns that her little brother, Daniel, died on Friday, November 12th of tuberculosus while serving in the Swedish army.

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Footnotes