22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY october 12-18, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com his great-granddaughters described Stilwell’s extensive diaries as intensely private.) The future general first saw the Monterey Peninsula as a young officer fresh from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York on his way to duty in the Philippines in 1904. Several years later, he was posted at the Presidio in Monterey and scouted Carmel with his wife. In Tuchman’s account, “Taking picnics on the beach and windswept walks on rocks pounded by the Pacific, they decided that here was the place where they wanted to live someday and make their home after retirement.” Stilwell returned to Carmel in 1920, purchasing five lots close to the shore at Carmel Point. It took almost 15 years—a career soldier can rarely settle in one place—but the couple finally had a two-story house constructed on Inspiration Avenue for a sizable sum of $27,000. It became home when Stilwell was assigned to Fort Ord in 1940. And it became a beacon for him during the turmoil to follow. Writing to Winifred from China in 1942, Stilwell asked her to “Take a look out the window and give me by telepathy an idea of the patio, and flowers, and fish pool and lawn, the trees, the ocean, Point Lobos…” In another letter published by Theodore White in The Stilwell Papers, he laments “Don’t know where I’ll be for Christmas—maybe back here, maybe in India. It doesn’t matter a bit because I won’t be in Carmel.” Taking command in San Francisco in 1946, Stilwell’s duties involved not only the Presidio, but also frequent trips to Washington, D.C. and other locations around the country. Yet his diaries continue to point to Carmel as his destination. The entry for Jan. 20, 1946 has Stilwell arriving at the airport in Monterey in the early morning hours. “Got a car promptly,” it reads. “At Carmel, house shut tight. No answer to bell or yell. Finally got Win up.” When home, he would tend to the landscaping. He always made an entry if he spotted a pheasant. March 17 was a bonanza in terms of bird watching: “Pheasants at our place (2) & Odells (4). They came at my whistle.” A few days later he observed “Two pheasants in Jeffers’.” As the year progressed, there were increasing mentions of medical checkups. On Sept. 16 he was at the doctor to have “my belly looked at.” The result wasn’t promising. “Sure enough, something suspicious about liver.” A few days later, the diary stops. Stilwell died in San Francisco less than a month later, on Oct. 12. While he never had the chance to experience retired living at the house he had built, it remained in the family. “My grandmother was living in the house,” recalls Easterbrook, who was 6 when his grandfather died. “It was always nice to go back to Carmel. That was home.” Carmel became home not only for Stilwell in his later years, but also for two of his five children, Nancy Stilwell Easterbrook (Easterbrook’s mother) and Alison Stilwell Cameron (Easterbrook’s aunt). While they were raised in China by their general-father before returning to the United States, their lives always straddled both countries. Meanwhile Cameron was establishing herself as a painter. She studied at Peking American School in Beijing, where she became one of very few Americans invited to study traditional Chinese painting technique under the mentorship of Prince P’u Ju and Yj Fei-An. The teaching technique was to learn upside down, sitting across the table from her instructor, according to a 2000 bulletin about Fort Ord history by the Monterey History and Art Association. She held her first solo show at age 17 at the Peking Institute of Fine Art. At 19, back in the U.S., her art was exhibited in California Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley. The family established themselves in Carmel; Cameron went on to paint a mural for Stilwell Hall on Fort Ord—it’s a windswept landscape in the Chinese style that she practiced. Her large-format landscapes featured recognizable local scenes of cypress trees on the coast, in the traditional Chinese style she’d studied as a teen. She also published a book on Chinese painting technique, and in her later years, showed her work at a gallery in Carmel. It was not until 1979 that Nancy and Alison were finally able to visit China again, as relations between the two countries began to thaw after 30 years of tension. Easterbrook says his mother, Nancy, never forgot the Mandarin she’d learned as a child. She was rusty and took language classes in China, but regained her fluency. And as international travel picked up, the sisters began to lead tours for American visitors. The sisters spoke to their tour members about how to further deepen a connection between the two counties, and from their guests, successfully solicited the first donations to what would become the Stilwell Scholarship. The scholarship program supports Chinese students with $10,000 to study at what is now called the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. (Nancy later donated a rental house in Carmel to MIIS, which the school sold after her death in 1997, endowing the scholarship.) Since it launched in 1982, the Stilwell scholarship has supported more than 60 scholars from mainland China studying in the U.S., with at least $10,000 each. (The 2023-24 scholar, Da Sun, was just selected for studying translation and localization management.) Easterbrook has traveled to China seeking donations from that side, as well, and has forged and maintained relationships with the scholars over the years. “It’s my grandfather’s legacy,” he says. “We want to keep that alive. We think it’s very important for not only this country and China, but for the world, that we stay friendly.” While the scholarship represents a grand view, for the scholars who receive funds, it is far more personal. For Xiaoyan “Grace” Shen—a former scholarship recipient and now an associate professor at MIIS—it changed her life. In 2007, Shen was a young professor teaching English and interpretation at a university in Xi’an, China. She wanted to advance her Tutor Guan Wenchun (left) lived with the Stilwell family on each of the general’s assignments in China in the 1920s and ’30s. “He became like a grandfather to the Stilwell children,” grandson John Easterbrook says. Joseph and Winifred are at the right, in the late 1920s. Daughters (tallest to shortest) are Nancy, Winifred (“Doot”) and Alison. Xiaoyan (Grace) Shen teaching at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Her first opportunity to study and live abroad was supported with a Stilwell scholarship in 2007 at MIIS. She has translated for dignitaries including Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright and Tony Blair. Courtesy John Easterbrook Daniel Dreifuss
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==