Early life , Hainan
Charlie Soong, the father of the Soong sisters, was born in
Wenchang,
Hainan, in 1866, with the birth name Han Chiao Shun. He initially traveled to
Java with his brother before being adopted by his uncle, who took them to
Boston, United States, where Charlie worked as a shop assistant. His name was misunderstood by Americans as Charlie Soon and later became Charlie Soong. In Boston, Charlie met New Shan-chow and , frequent visitors to the shop, who encouraged him to pursue further education. In 1879, he fled the store and boarded the
USS Albert Gallatin of the
United States Revenue Cutter Service, where he was adopted by Captain Eric Gabrielson. Charlie became a Christian in
Wilmington in 1880, becoming the first
baptised Chinese person in
North Carolina. With the support of a local church, he studied at
Trinity College and later
Vanderbilt University. Their first daughter, Ai-ling, was born on 15 July 1889 in Kunshan, followed by two more daughters, Ching-ling and Mei-ling, as well as three sons, Tse-ven (T. V.), Tse-liang (T. L.) and Tse-an (T. A.). Charlie resigned from the mission in 1892, due to insufficient fund to support his family and became a successful businessperson for printing the
Bible.
Education Charlie was deeply committed to education in the United States for his daughters. He wanted them to receive a Methodist education, so he enrolled them at McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, where Ching-ling studied from 1904 to 1907. Acting on the advice of his missionary friend William Burke, who had ties to the Mulberry Street United Methodist Church in
Macon, Charlie sent his eldest daughter Ai-ling to
Wesleyan College in 1904. Ching-ling and Mei-ling were among the first government-funded female Chinese students to study in the United States. The group, consisting of ten male and four female students, departed from
Shanghai on 1 August 1907 and arrived in
Seattle on 28 August, under the escort of , the director of the Foreign Office of the
Viceroy of Liangjiang. Ching-ling first attended school in
Summit, New Jersey, to study
Latin and
French to fulfil Wesleyan's entrance requirements. She joined Ai-ling as a full-time college student at Wesleyan in the autumn of 1908, with their youngest sister Mei-ling accompanying them despite being only ten years old. Sun became fascinated with Ai-ling, constantly gazing at her, although Ai-ling did not reciprocate his feelings in the same way. Ching-ling graduated from Wesleyan in 1913, and returned to China via
Yokohama, Japan, where she met Sun. Ai-ling resigned in 1914 to marry
H. H. Kung, passing the position on to Ching-ling, Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen on 25 October 1915. There were limited witnesses in their wedding ceremony in Tokyo, which included Wada Mizu, who provided his home for the wedding,
Liao Zhong-kai and Liao's 11-year-old daughter Cynthia. The Soong family chased Ching-ling to Tokyo, attempting to dissuade her from the marriage, with her father Charlie even appealing to the
Japanese government to denounce Sun. Additionally, many of Sun’s colleagues did not acknowledge Ching-ling as his wife, referring to her as Miss Soong rather than Mrs Sun. During a visit to Sun's residence in Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek encountered Ching-ling's younger sister,
Mei-ling, for the first time and became enamoured with her. Subsequently, Chiang divorced his wife in
Fenghua and sought Sun's counsel on pursuing Mei-ling. When Sun consulted Ching-ling on the matter, she expressed her strong disapproval. Sun then advised Chiang to wait, and Chiang obeyed. In 1927, Mei-ling married Chiang, who was about to launch a purge against the CCP. Ching-ling protested and left China after the purge.
Reunion in the war in
Chongqing In 1937, when the
Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, all three of them got together after a 10-year separation in an effort to unite the Kuomintang and Communists against the
Imperial Japanese army. Soong Ai-ling devoted herself to social work such as helping wounded soldiers, refugees and orphans. She donated five ambulances and 37 trucks to the army in
Shanghai and the air force, along with 500 leather uniforms. When the Japanese occupied
Nanjing and
Wuhan, the three sisters moved to
Hong Kong. In 1940, they returned to
Chongqing and established the
Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, which opened job opportunities for people through weaving, sewing and other crafts. The sisters frequently visited schools, hospitals, orphanages, air raid shelters and aided war torn communities along the way.
Break-up and deaths with
Zhou Enlai in
Beijing, 1954 , 1964 In 1944, Ai-ling left China for Brazil to receive medical treatment and later settled in the United States in 1946. In November 1948, Mei-ling travelled to the United States to seek support for her husband, Chiang Kai-shek, and the Kuomintang. In May 1949, she wrote to Ching-ling, asking if there was anything she could do for her sister in China. This letter marked the last communication between Mei-ling and Ching-ling. Following the Kuomintang's defeat in the Chinese Civil War, Mei-ling arrived in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1950, while Ching-ling remained on the mainland and joined the Communist-led government. In 1957, Ching-ling wrote to Ai-ling, requesting her to return to China. In 1969, Ai-ling and Mei-ling attended the funeral of their brother T. A. Soong in San Francisco, but Ching-ling was absent. In 1971, T. V. Soong died in San Francisco, and his funeral was scheduled to take place in New York. Mei-ling flew from Taiwan to Hawaii for a stopover, during which Chiang Kai-shek urged her to cancel her trip. She later learned that the Communist Chinese government had informed the U.S. government of Ching-ling’s intention to attend the funeral in New York. Consequently, Mei-ling and Ai-ling both cancelled their trips, and none of the sisters attended their brother's funeral. Ai-ling died in New York in 1973. Ching-ling had planned to reunite with Mei-ling in Japan before her death, which never happened. Beijing later invited Mei-ling to the funeral, but she told Chiang Ching-kuo, her stepson, that she would not go. Ching-ling was buried in the Soong family graveyard in June 1981. In January 1984, the cemetery was revamped as the Soong Ching-ling Mausoleum, which came under state protection in February 1982. Before Mei-ling died in 2003, she had refused to be buried in Taiwan and hoped to be buried with her parents in Shanghai, which was not acceptable for the Kuomintang. As a result, she was buried in the United States instead. ==Family members==