Mary Coulling is 97 years old and grew up as a missionary child in China. She was born in Shanghai and lived in North China for her first 10 years. She also lived in Baltimore, MD and Salt Lake City, UT. She went to college in Georgia before moving to this area.
Can you tell me about your schooling and your work history?
I went to college in Georgia and then I came here so I've not had any schooling beyond my AB degree.
The first year I was here, I lived out in the county. I came to work as the secretary for my uncle who was a minister at New Monmouth church. After I worked for my uncle for a year, I moved to VMI and became the secretary of the man who was head of buildings and grounds. I wasn't a very good secretary but I was bright enough to be given a sample and write all the contracts and all the other things pretty independently. Then I was asked to be in charge of all the personnel records. At the time I moved here, VMI was still very much sort of a paternalistic place as far as hiring is concerned. When I first came and I was under Colonel Haynes.
Then I moved from VMI over to W&L and I became a writer. So I wrote for the W&L magazine and then after my husband and I were married, I stopped working for a long time to raise my family. Then my parents moved here and so I had responsibilities for them, but all through that I began doing some research and then eventually, after the kids were grown, I published two books. Two historical biographies: one about General Lee's four daughters and the other about a woman named Margaret Junkin Preston whose husband was one of the founders of VMI (Preston library is named for him).
Can you tell me about your family background?
My grandparents were in China for 50 years and then they moved here. They had no real home and the Lexington Presbyterian Church did them a big favor by buying a lot for them in the cemetery. My grandparents, my parents, and my husband are all buried in the church area.
There was a feeling back then, a mandate for Christians to try to at least offer Christianity all over the world to as many people as possible. My grandfather, I think, felt that very much. My grandmother had an uncle who had been a missionary in Africa and I think she was influenced by his example. But also she was a very independent young woman growing up in South Carolina. So at the age of 23 she just took off as a single woman, under the Presbyterian auspices, and traveled by herself out to China to become a single missionary. She was a very brave woman. There were things that she did and that women could do in the mission field that they never could do in this country. They were running schools, or they would run hospitals, and a, number of women were midwives. Things that just were not being done in this country but that was all at about the yea1900.
Now when my parents went out, my mother had been Episcopalian and she was planning to go to Africa as a nurse. My dad, having grown up in China, came back and got his medical degree with the idea of going back as a missionary but in the period of early 1920s there was this huge euphoria. The first world war was "the war to end all wars" and there was to be this universal peace. The League of Nations was going to keep everything peaceful and so there was this huge impetus to try to Christianize the world within a short period of time. The group called The Student Volunteer Movement solicited college-age professional young people to go over as missionaries and both my parents signed up. It was kind of a consortium of people, like-minded people, and China had become sort of the dramatic place to go during that period. There were a lot of people from this area who went out there.
What was the most pivotal year of your life and why?
Oh, when I got married here. My husband was a Washington and Lee graduate. Well, he started at W&L, then he went in the war. He came back and finished at W&L and took his graduate degrees and came back here to teach. That's when we got to know each other. I was working at W&L. That changed the whole focus of my life.
Do you have a family tradition that has special meaning for you?
Well, I guess family gatherings became the most important. I had moved here to work for my uncle but my side of the family had a long tradition connected to Lexington. My grandfather was also a missionary and he was supported in large part by the Lexington Presbyterian church. When my dad, his brothers, and his parents would come back every seven years, they would spend a month in Lexington and so he got to know Lexington people. When I moved here, there were people who had known my family. For me, it was a very happy transition moving here, and as my children grew and my parents moved here, I think the family connections became most import.
As a family, we have a sort of tradition of Sally Lunn. It's an English breakfast bread, a yeasted bread, and you put it in a bundt pan. It's a little bit sweet, sort of like a muffin, but it's a yeasted bread. We always had that on Christmas morning.
Do you have a favorite family recipe that you feel should be preserved?
Well, I don't know, I have several different things. I also have been a great baker over the years. I can't do it here because all I have is a microwave but when my mother-in-law broke up her place, I wanted all the cookie cutters. They're old. They're metal, not the plastic ones. Over the years, I have made cookies for the family and for friends here. I have always sent lots and lots of cookies. I just think cookie making and bread making has been very important to me.
All through our marriage, and I was married nearly sixty years, I gave my husband yeast rolls every night for dinner. I had my mother-in-law's recipe. You make the rolls and then you can freeze them. So I pulled out three or four every night and then I'd make up a new batch. So I guess you could say breads and other things were my specialty in the family. I have a whole box of recipes. Well, there's one recipe that I guard, that my mother passed on to me, which I've never seen anywhere else.
Is there a family heirloom that is precious to you?
My husband's ancestor was the first president of Washington College and so we have a great big secretary which belonged to him and that's the oldest piece that I have from his family. I guess the oldest heirloom that I have is this ring which my grandfather gave to my grandmother the day his first child was born. That child later inherited this and then she gave it to me.
Do you have any advice to give to people who want to live a long and happy life?
Just think about other people and be kind.
Mary Coulling's Mother-in-law's yeast roll recipe:
