Forbidden Orphanage Outside the Forbidden City
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- ISBN 9781963511260
- Publication Date: 19 Mar 2026
- Publisher: Catalyst Books
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Laura Richards was a shy American nurse who moved to a remote North China village in 1929 to take in castaway babies. Through 22 years of famines, bandit invasions and wars, she lived in the same poor conditions as the Chinese peasants, while managing to save the lives of nearly 200 destitute children. So why did she refuse the Chinese Communist Party’s offer to make her a national heroine? Laura Richards’ story was too dangerous to tell when she returned to the U.S. in 1951. But when she died thirty years later, the old letters, photographs, and scattered bits of memoir that she left behind were so intriguing to her second cousin Becky Cerling Powers, that Becky began a 25-year quest to discover her quiet relative’s amazing story. Eventually that quest led Becky to China and the orphans themselves. Today, over half a century after Laura left China, her story and her children’s story can finally be told.
Becky Cerling Powers is a retired journalist and author or compiler of several books, including Forbidden Orphanage Outside the Forbidden City; Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds (parenting); and My Roots Go Back to Loving (El Paso family stories). She loves to listen to people’s stories and teach kids to write. You can find more about Becky at www.beckypowers.com.
