Lost in China is the true story of two young children stranded in Western China during World War II.
It’s November 1941. Siblings Jennifer and John, ages seven and five, huddle in a cement culvert near Kunming, China, while Japanese Zeros fly overhead. Jennifer pretends to ignore the screech of gunfire. Where are Daddy and Mummy? she thinks.
Lost in China is the true story of two Anglo-American children separated from their parents in China during World War II, and their unforgettable journey to America a year later.
When their mother and father fly to Hong Kong on a short trip and get caught up in the Japanese attack, the Dobbs children are left parentless, with no idea when their parents will return—or if they are even still alive. For a year, the children remain in Western China.
Finally, after spending a month traveling three-quarters of the way around the world via the US military’s World War II air ferry routes, they reunite with their mother in a rain-swept, deserted airfield in Washington, DC—and face a shocking discovery about their father.
Lost in China is both a riveting firsthand account of a family broken apart in World War II China and a daughter’s tribute to her beloved father.
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Upcoming Readings
April 27, 2024, 2:00 PM
Miller Library
Washington College
300 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD21620
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"Readers will be immediately swept into Dobbs’s world from the first pages of this breathtaking story and inundated with the sights, sounds and smells of a China few would otherwise experience: rickshaws scoot around the landscape, the waters of the Yangtze flooding up past the river’s banks, and street vendors hawk mouthwatering cuisine like sugar-coated haws and dried plum candy. . . . Fans of coming-of-age memoirs rich with period and cultural detail and the tumult of the twentieth century’s wars will enjoy this engaging, informative read."
—BookLife
“[Dobbs’s] reminiscence is simply extraordinary—historically edifying, emotionally dramatic, and elegantly conveyed. A gripping memoir brimming with personal and historical insight.”
—Kirkus Reviews
F.E.L. Dobbs, Ted, Daddy (1900–1941).
First portrait of my father and us children, Shanghai, 1937.
Alice, nicknamed Girlie, in the living room of her family’s Peking house, 1927. The black-and-gold lacquer cabinets came to America with Katie and remain in the family.
The Children's Parade on the deck of the SS Canton, 1939, Teddy center holding my hand; Amah carrying John; Mummy, wearing dark glasses, stands close to the ship's railing.
John, age 7, now in America, 1943.
Donkeys were brought to meet us when we arrived in Beidaihe by train each summer. Here, we children are on our way to the beach by donkey transport. No cars, not even a road, go to our hilltop summer house. Great-Grandmother Mary Candlin (Katie’s mom) has her own transportation—a sedan chair, which is stored above the porch rafters when not in use.
In the back garden with Amah, Shanghai house, 1939.
Me, age nine, now in America, 1943.
With Lola Julius, our nanny in Shanghai, 1940.
My father, Ted, seated in front of his father, Francis (Frank), and beside his older brother, C. Eric Stewart, at their ranch in Rosario, Argentina.
Our last Christmas in Shanghai. Mummy and her brother, Tom (headmaster at the Shanghai American School), made the dollhouse (every room lit by a tiny flashlight bulb in the ceiling) and all its furnishings. Western-style toys were not available in China at the time.