Ansie Lee Sperry died in Portola Valley, California on July 13, 2018 at age 103. Born in Macao on September 20, 1914, Ansie grew up in Hong Kong in a traditional Chinese family as one of fourteen children in a household with four mothers. Sent to England for her education at the age of nine, she returned to Hong Kong four years later after her father's murder. During the Sino-Japanese war she volunteered for the Chinese Red Cross in the interior of China, working briefly as secretary to Madame Chiang-Kai-Shek (Soong Mei-ling) in 1939. In December, 1941, Ansie was traveling on a ship that put into Manila Harbor just as the Japanese attacked and she became a civilian POW in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines for over three years. She wrote about these experiences in her memoir, "Running with the Tiger," published when she was 94. Ansie married Henry M. Sperry, whom she had met in internment camp, in Shanghai in 1946 and lived there and in Hong Kong until Henry retired from his banking career. Ansie and Henry moved to Portola Valley, California in 1973 and to the Sequoias-Portola Valley in 1990.

2.85 Linear Feet (4 manuscript boxes, 1 carton)

While Special Collections is the owner of the physical items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.

Open for research. Note that material must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Audiovisual & born-digital materials are not available in original format, and must be reformatted to a digital use copy.