1907: Neighbors try to force out Chinese and White couple
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1907: Neighbors try to force out Chinese and White couple
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The Berkeley Gazette, Berkeley, California, Wednesday, June 19, 1907, pages 1 and 6, "Celestial's Wife Wrathy"
Juse because her American neigh-hors do not like the idea of having a Celestial in their midst, Mrs. Don Louis of 2328 Fulton street, wife of a wealthy, high caste Chinaman, dees not propose to retire to the back. ground and give up her new home, but on the contrary will fight to a finich and if necessary will carry her troubles into the courts.
Claiming to come from good old Puritan stock, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, and a distant relative of Benjamin Franklin, Mrs. Louis is proud of her Oriental husband and she demonstrates her American spirit of independence when she says that she does not care what other persons think as long as she is satisfied.
Neighbors of Don Luis and his wife have just discovered that the husband is a Chinaman and they are wroth to think that a Celestial should have the temerity to come into their midst
It doesn't appear to be a case where money talks as Don Luis has a great sufficiency of the necessary coin, and his little American wife paid a year's rent in advance, when she leased the Fulton street house. Don Lous is now on his way to China to attend to certain Oriental interests and as he will not return until August it is up to his wife to fight the battle for their rights,
"If the people in this vicinity don't like my husband or his nationality they can move for I shall not," said Mrs. Louis, this morning.
"We certainly are respectable, we ask nothing of them, and as long as we conduct ourselves as respectable, law-abiding citizens they might leave us alone. I don't ask them to cultivate my acquaintance and I certainly shall not seek to know them.
"I consider that I am the equal of most of them and from a standpoint of good blood better than certain ones, I can boast of being of Puritan stock and a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, in addition to being related in a distant way to Benjamin Franklin. There was nothing disgraceful in my marriage to Don Luis. There was no elopement and my parents sanctioned my marriage.
"Certain persons have taken it upon themselves to criticise me because I married an Oriental, but I consider that is purely my own business and their actions shall not drive me from the home I have just entered. If necessary I will put the case in the hands of a lawyer.
"All of the citizens of Berkeley are not as snobbish as the persons I men-ton. One family living near Channing way and Ellsworth street wish me to lease their home and when they heard of my trouble this morning came to me and asked me again to take the house. But I will not admit that anyone can drive me out of my present domicile and will fight for my rights to the last."
Mrs. Louis formerly was Miss Dorothy Trescott and she married her husband in San Francisco May 28, 1906.
She had been his private tutor in English and, friendship ripening into love, they were married. The two went to Stanford, where the husband entered the university and the wife continued to coach him in his English, and it was not until a week ago that they came here and leased the house on Fulton street. The husband sailed for the Orient almost immediately and the wife will await his return here.
