Mysterious Chinese Woman's Secret Admirer

In the 1920's, a striking Chinese woman occasionally emerged from a tiny house in south San Antonio. People would turn to look, partly because there were not many Chinese in the country at that time and only a tiny number of women. Mostly they noticed her because she was seven feet tall.

She was often the object of insulting remarks because of her race and her uncommon size. She seemed to have no friends, and she lacked the skill or language to overcome the rude treatment she met. Children threw trash in her yard, and someone even spoke of setting fire to her house.

One spring day she was found dead by her own hand. Two Chinese men buried her nearby--in an unmarked grave, as was the custom with suicides.

The next morning, a passerby noticed a strange thing: her grave was covered with flowers, roses and bluebonnets, paintbrush and buttercups, beautifully arrayed by loving hands.

A year later, and the next and the next, the flowers appeared. People began to feel glad when they saw them each year. Someone had loved this woman. Someone, but they didn't know whom.

And, probably, neither did she.

Copyright 1998
The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio