A Golden Glow in the East

About the Book

A Golden Glow in the East brings together letters Esther Nairn wrote to her family from China and Japan from 1910 to 1925, when she was a teacher with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. She had graduated in 1909 from the University of Rochester, which first admitted women in 1900.

"Esther Nairn's (luckily-saved) letters home - from when she headed out to China in 1910 as a young missionary, through her years of running a girls school in Shaoshing - are a joy to read, for this spirited redhead who loves her life and her work sees much to be enchanted by, much too to laugh about. And it's with a quick-paced, insightful prose that she reports the wonders of her Chinese adventure - set in the mission community off Silk and Satin Lane with summer months in the misty mountains of Mokansan ."

"Back for final days in America, she sends her love to the Chinese. This woman who so often celebrated the play of light in China, the glow of lantern, firefly, sun and moon, is herself a golden glow - and with sparks."
- Peggy Thomson
Author of nine books for children,
including City Kids in China.

About the Author

Agnes Nasmith Johnston. She has had two books of poetry published: Beyond the Moongate, Lotus Press, and Bridges to Beginnings, Road Publishers.

Mary Nasmith Means was born in China. She received a B.A. in English from Middlebury College and worked for 12 years as a librarian in Virginia public schools.