Dong was born to a Christian family in
Qingpu, Shanghai, in 1891. He entered
St. John's University, Shanghai to study theology in 1914 and graduated in 1917. In 1924 he returned to work at St. John's University. After the
May Thirtieth Movement in 1925, he removed a
flag of the United States on campus and replaced it with a
flag of the Republic of China. He was thus forced to leave the university and became a priest at . In 1926, introduced him to work under the warlord
Feng Yuxiang as the secretary of the department of propaganda and lead labour movements in
Luoyang, Henan. After he left Feng, Pu and introduced him to join the
Chinese Communist Party in 1928. He joined the
Central Special Branch of the CCP in the same year as an agent. He rescued other partisans and participated in the assassination of under
Chen Geng. In 1930 he opened the to take care of the children of CCP members. Around 1931,
Mao Zedong sent his three sons
Mao Anying,
Mao Anqing, and
Mao Anlong to Dong's kindergarten, while he moved to the
Jinggang Mountains to lead the
Chinese Red Army. In 1932, the CCP decided to close the kindergarten. Dong raised Mao's children until he sent them to the
Soviet Union in 1936 under the assistance of
Zhang Xueliang. The CCP arranged Dong to meet
Edgar Snow, an American journalist, in
Xi'an in 1936. He accompanied Snow and
Ma Haide, an American doctor, to
Yan'an in June that year. After the
Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Dong lost contact with CCP leadership. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, he was arrested and imprisoned for a year for his connections with
Pan Hannian and . When Edgar Snow revisited China in 1960, he asked Mao if he could meet the priest who accompanied him to Yan'an, and Dong was brought to Mao's attention. In 1962 Dong was named a counselor at Shanghai Government. He suffered persecution during the
Cultural Revolution and died on 25 December 1970. == References ==