Ruth LITTLE [c.1914-????]

According to the account in The Yip Family of Amah Rock, Ruth Little was an Australian nurse of Christian faith who had been inspired by the work of Mildred Dibden to join her in the work in the Fanling Babies’ Home.  It was because of her nursing skills that Miss Dibden was able to persuade the Colonial Secretary to permit her to come to Hong Kong in 1940.

Little, aged 27/28, arrived in HK in June of 1941, her fare having been paid by friends and supporters.  She was undaunted by the numbers leaving the city on the eve of war, also by the fact that no salary awaited her in her new employment.  It was while doing her nursing training at the Watt Street Hospital in Newcastle, New South Wales, that she had heard of the Fanling Babies' Home through the Australian Nurses' Christian Movement, which was sponsoring a child there.  She contacted Mildred Dibden to find out more, and was told there was no salary, but if she could trust God for her provision, there was a place there for her.  That was sufficient incentive for her to lay aside plans of career and marriage that she had, and travel to Hong Kong; she proved to be a tower of strength at Miss Dibden's side during the war years. 

After the invasion six months later on December 8th, the Home was raided in the early days by groups of soldiers looting and plundering and occasionally raping where they got the chance.  Little was saved by the intervention of Mildred Dibden on the one occasion she was told to strip by a soldier.  By trial and error though, the 3 women staff (Mildred, Ruth and Lula Bell Hough, an American missionary) and the amahs found that the most successful ploy when threatened was to resort to mass screaming, which always had the desired effect and caused their assailants to flee. After one such incident, they had a visit from a Japanese officer asking about the screaming, and promising punishment for those responsible. (A moment of sanity in all the madness).  Things went better after that.

On another occasion the three European women ('foreigners') were taken off and spent the night in a barn occupied by Japanese troops.  Each of them realised that execution was a very strong possibility.  But then Mildred Dibden describes how a deep feeling of peace settled on them, and she marvelled at the serene expressions on her companions' faces.  The next morning they were marched out and to their great surprise, instead of being executed, Misses Dibden and Little were marched back to the Home and inexplicably  released.  Miss Hough being an American was interned at a mission in Taipo and later repatriated.

In 1942 the Japanese administration agreed to provide food for the Home if Miss Dibden collected the chits for the supplies from the HSBC building in Central, Hong Kong. Once a month Mildred, accompanied by either Ruth or Iris Critchell (another missionary who joined Mildred in January 42), did the 40 mile round trip with an old pram to Hong Kong to get the rice ration for the home. 

In July of that year all 3 women had a spell in St Paul’s Hospital with enteritis.   

In 1943 Mildred was admitted to the Italian Convent Hospital with bacillary dysentery.  Her life was saved by some serum hard won from the Japanese administration. 

In July the Home was touched by a cholera epidemic and Mildred and Ruth fell ill with mild cases, but survived.  Iris ran the Home until they returned in September.

In 1944 the rice ration was cut drastically, but with a loan of 3000 yen from  Mr Aw Boon-Haw of Tiger-Balm fame, the women started a pig business.  This saw them through to the end of the War in 1945.

They suffered great hardships over the four years of the occupation, and they lost a number of the younger babies, but the end came and normality was restored. 

Post war the Home continued and numbers started increasing again.  About 1946/47 Ruth Little had to return home to Australia to nurse her mother who had fallen ill with a stroke, and she didn't return to Hong Kong for some years.  Her six or so years with the FBH were relatively brief but intense, a real baptism of fire, but she had been God's person in that place for that time, a prime example (with a slight gender alteration) of 'cometh the hour, cometh the man.' 

In time her place was taken by missionary nurse Lucy Clay, who came from England in 1948.

Back in Australia Ruth Little worked with the vulnerable through the Sydney Rescue Work Society helping alcoholics, prostitutes, and lonely, destitute people.  (See newspaper links in the next post.)  She missed her Fanling girls very much but as their 'Aunty Ruth' she kept in touch with many of them by letter. 

Like Mildred Dibden she had permanent after-effects from the illnesses she suffered from during the war (dengue fever and malaria), and she was occasionally subject to severe attacks of asthma.

She did return to Hong Kong at least once.  In Mildred Dibden's 1963 newsletter to supporters of the Shatin Children's Home, she gave news of the wedding of one of her Fanling girls to the Home's gardener, Fa Wong (Flower King!) in March of that year.  Ruth was able to fly from Australia and attend the wedding, and the children were delighted to welcome her back.  The wedding was held at the little Lutheran church in Shatin, and Archdeacon Donnithorne (Uncle Donny) gave the bride away.

Sources:

The Yip Family of Amah Rock by Jill Doggett

The Australians Newspapers links provided by moddsey (below).

1. Article in the Australian Women's Weekly dated 14 January 1970 - The Yip's Family Aunty Ruth. 

2. Article  in the Newcastle Sun dated 31 August 1943 provides the first direct communication (written in January 1943) received from Miss Ruth Little. The well-being of Miss Dibden and the continuing work of the Fanling Babies' Home are mentioned.

3. Article in the Daily News (Perth, W.A.) dated 12 September 1945 on the ordeal suffered by three women medical missionaries, Little, Dibden and Critchell during the Japanese Occupation.

(Miss Ruth Little had left Australia on 5 June 1941 under the auspices of the Australian Nurses' Christian Movement to take up work at the Fanling Babies' Home. Article in the Newcastle Sun dated 12 September 1945.

After the Japanese Occupation, she arrived in Sydney by plane from Hong Kong after  four and half years at the Fanling Babies' Home and returned to Peak Hill on Wednesday, 5 December 1945. Article in the Narromine News and Triangle Advocate dated 7 December 1945.)

Great finds moddsey!  Thank you so much.

It all adds very welcome fresh info to the story.  And having pics of Ruth Little, Jill Doggett and Mildred Dibden in Article 1 is an added bonus.

There are small discrepancies when compared with other accounts of the Fanling Babies' Home - Little's age when arriving in Hong Kong (27/28), the number of children who died in the first few months of the war (18/60), the number of children who survived the war (52/54), the number of girls who went to live in Southsea, UK (21/25), but I have found these seem to be a common feature of a story that was told to different agencies by the different people involved in the work over a period of years.  Even the accounts by Mildred Dibden herself have inconsistencies.  It all goes to show the effect that time (and trauma) can have on our recollection.