The three and a half years’ absence did not mark the end of Miss Peterson’s connection with China. She went back to Shanghai in 1945 and worked at a Presbyterian relief center during the Chinese Civil War period. She eventually bade farewell to China on the Navy ship, SS Breckenridge, in 1949.
The end of missionary work in China would never cut off the unbreakable connection between Miss Peterson’s heart and China. Many years after she returned home, Miss Peterson echoed a poem, My Heart’s Off in China, by Stella Fisher Burgess, in her diary, where she wrote: “I slept well … and dreamed of China.”
My Heart’s Off in China
By Stella Fisher Burgess
If sometimes my eyes have a faraway gleam
It’s because I am traveling – I’m not where I seem.
My heart’s off in China. I hear its long call.
The wanderlust’s got me – I’m dreaming – that’s all.
My ears catch the street huckster’s minor refrain,
Where the tinkle of camel-bell rings thru the rain.
My heart’s off in China and whistling a tune
To the jolt of a mule-cart on stone roads at noon.
Each spot is a story-book laden with age,
Replete with the lore of philosopher, sage;
And the heart that once starts on the classics’ long track
Leaves part of itself, never wholly comes back…
In a temple-roof’s shade with its off curly-kews
A fig for your Wall Street and all the world’s news!
Your heart’s simply China right up to the brim,
All else on the planet fades hazy and dim.
So keep your express trains and sky-scrapers too!
There’s lure in the old that there’s not in the new.
Republic or empire, she holds your heart’s sway,
Dear manifold China, the ancient Cathay.