Ming Quong Home for Girls

Jessie's eldest daughters Eleanor and Estelle lived at the Ming Quong Home For Girls.  They were her daughters from her first marriage.  I do not yet know the reason why her first marriage ended, nor do I know why the girls lived there.

The home was run by the Presbyterian Missionaries.  From watching the video, it seems that girls were sent there to live if they were orphaned or if their parents were unable to care for them properly. It was during the Great Depression that Eleanor and Estelle would have been sent to live at the home.  I would venture to guess that their father was no longer in the picture and Jessie was unable to care for them on her own.

Every Saturday Jessie and Ed would drive to Oakland to visit the girls, and often would bring some of the cousins along for the visit.


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update: 2013

....Last year, I had the privilege and honor to meet Jessie's daughter Estelle and Estelle's grandson Greg and great-granddaughter Kelsi.

I learned that in 1930 Jessie and Homer(her first husband) went to China in 1930 and took their two young daughters with them.  While living in China, Jessie gave birth to a third child.  They named the baby Homer Jr.  Sometime during their time in China, Jessie and Homer's marriage fell apart.

The two sisters returned from China in 1938 and lived with various relatives for the next few years.  Eleanor is reported on the 1940 Census as living with her father Homer and his third wife, Frances.

Sometime after 1940, someone reported the girls to child services as not 'orphan' children without a proper home/family and they were placed in the Ming Quong School until they were adults.