Larry Arrives in U.S. Alone at Age 16

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.)

At the end of the war (1945), Larry and the families returned to Shanghai, hoping to stay a while. But China  had re-engaged in their civil war between the Communists and the Guomindang. Within but a few years, Larry’s father left with the Guomindang government for Taiwan. Not long after, Father sent word for the rest of them to get out. They escaped on the last freighter leaving Shanghai.

Larry stayed in Taiwan for a couple of months before he was sent to Hong Kong to attend British Academy boarding school. Upon graduation at age 15, he prepared for yet another—much bigger move. 

“I was beginning to be good at math and science, so I applied to MIT."

How did he even know about MIT?

"Anyone who was good at math and science in China at the time heard about it."

Larry was accepted to MIT, and came across the Pacific at age 16 on his own.

Knotsberry Farm, September, 1950

"I arrived from China in the U.S. at Los Angeles on September 1, 1950. My God-sister and God-brothers (who had lived with my family in the interior during WWII,) met me. They looked after me, showed me around, drove me to San Francisco. I was able to speak in Chinese with them. It helped me with the strangeness of everything else, and my homesickness." 

Four days later, they put him on a train bound for Chicago. He would have to change trains there to get to Boston.  "For the first time, I was alone in a strange country. I had to find my own way. My English was not so good."
He whiled away the time by reading, "Etiquette," by Emily Post, hoping it would teach him how to conduct himself in America. Twelve hours later he arrived in the Chicago Union Station, one of the largest and busiest stations in the country.  How did he avoid getting lost?

Travelers" Aid

"They had Traveler's Aid stations in all the terminals, so I was able to get the directions I needed." When he arrived in Boston, Traveler's Aid' once again directed him, this time to the taxi stand. Larry made one of his first memorable attempts to speak English by saying to the taxi driver, "The traffic is very heavy."

Little did he know that his journey was far from over.

(To be continued. Next: No Vacancies.)