“VU Influenced Powerful Soong Family”

This picture of Charles (Charlie) Soong was taken at Vanderbilt University, a student in the school’s Biblical Department. Before enrolling at Vanderbilt, he was born to a land-poor farmer on the South China island of Hainan during the 1860s. At the age of nine, he became an apprentice and worked on fishing boats in southern China before finding his way to America. He may have been the first Chinese many Nashvillians encountered since arriving in Nashville in 1882. “He had a fine mind, learned to use the English language with accuracy and fluency, and was usually bubbling over with wit and humor and good nature,” classmate John C. Orr remembered.