WR Lynch American Consular Service in Shanghai

American Consular Service in Shanghai, China  1922
WR Lynch is in back row, third from right.
No identify of the others.
Click on picture to enlarge.

Above is a picture of the people in the American Consular Service in Shanghai, China in 1922, taken in Shanghai. 

     We will take a break from Will Lynch's "detention" to show where he worked with the Diplomatic Corps in Shanghai.
     I don't know how many were there twenty years later when some of this group were taken hostage on December 7, 1941.  The Japanese captured Shanghai the same day they bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.   America joined World War II against the Axis--mainly Germany and Japan.  
     I love the hats and dresses the women are wearing.  The women may have been wives.  Will was a bachelor.  
     The family story was that he had been engaged to a young woman, but when he went to the Philippine Islands to teach in 1912, she did not want to go to the other side of the world,  so they never married.  Her mother did not want her to go there, and who could blame her?  It was very "foreign" and very far away.  I guess he wanted to have adventure more than he wanted to marry!
     All of the people were Americans and probably had a close relationship, as there were not many Americans in China at that time.     
     Will lynch would have been 37 years old when this picture was taken and 56 years old when he was taken diplomatic hostage in 1941.