European House #23, crop 1920s cheung chau

The European House on this property was labeled as '23' on the map of 1938's European Reservation. The confusion to me is a bit ambiguous, because the European House number is always different from the I.L.(Island Lot) number. 

Since the 'I.L.' seemed to be erased off the 1938 map, it is quite OK to call it European House #23. However, when more houses or buildings rise up within the same lot, their individual mailing addresses could be changed again.

A mailing address change did happen to my home in 1956 too.

The mailing address assigned to this particular bungalow in the 1920s could likely be different in the 1950s as more houses and buildings appeared.

However, I could share some stories solely based on this physical bungalow. 

Tung

I agree that the archive states much better than my own searching or head scratching! 

I attempt to share materials from my real surroundings, as true as they catch my attention. The disadvantage is so obvious. I could only be helpful to offer certain brainstorming from my memory. 

As for the house in question, it bothered me for quite a while too. My sincere apology.

So recently I re-read the autobiography of the missionary whose name is Ruth Hitchcock. Her parents sponsored her gospel ministry, starting in a poor district in South China. About a dozen years later, she bought a property as a birthday gift from her parents, just before the end of 1926. The address is 25 Peak Road in Cheung Chau. That house was also being opened up as a retreat or holiday resort for other missionaries. 

The house mentioned above is not the same one as my church friends' and I had been singing the Christmas Carols for a few years at her assumed residence. So I mean when it was the mid 1950s.

A piece of valuable information is that the substantial property size of House # 23 was very big indeed. The remaining yards and hillside terraces were eventually integrated to form the huge expansion site of the Bible seminary, a significant campus of high education. The moderate forest of pines or other greenness surrounding House #23, which was the home residence of Missionary Miss Ruth Hitchcock, as we knew it then.

In the autobiography, it clearly mentioned that Mr. Newbern of the seminary, invited Miss Hitchcock, who had returned to California and had determined to stay there by the side of her ailing mother, to join the faculty to teach, as soon as she was available, with residence included. She did take the job around 1959 or so, because I have seen her quite often in the town market lanes since then. She was so humble and friendly to so many different diversities.

So the Christmas Carols singing had to be held in front of House # 23. It sounds as good as #23 Peak Road in Cheung Chau. The main portion of the residence was once empty and reserved solely for her return to work at the seminary.

To me, I don't really know more about the end story of House #25.

Sounds Better?

By the way, Mr. Newborn's name was on the attendees list of the 1938 concert at the Assembly Hall.

Tung

The autobiography was first published in the US in 1975, a few years after her official retirement, and leaving Cheung Chau and China with fruitful happiness. The Good Hand of Our God is the title.

Tung.