By Robert Neff
Rose Foote, the wife of the first American representative to Korea, was certainly painted in a negative light by Ensign George C. Foulk but she also had a soft side ― one that he chose not to mention.
According to her biographer (Mary V. Tingley Lawrence, whose prose is definitely dated), even though Rose was busily engaged in the renovation of the legation, it wasn t enough for the energetic woman and she longed to do more.
She chaffed at being locked up on the legation grounds and longed to go out and meet the people. She often climbed a ladder and looked down over the outer wall to study the spirit and the local color of the busy panorama in the crowded streets. The hard, primitive methods of the men and women at work, the hungry children, the squalid poverty and misery enlisted her serious attention.
By Robert Neff
Rose Foote, the wife of the first American representative to Korea, was certainly painted in a negative light by Ensign George C. Foulk but she also had a soft side ― one that he chose not to mention.
According to her biographer (Mary V. Tingley Lawrence, whose prose is definitely dated), even though Rose was busily engaged in the renovation of the legation, it wasn t enough for the energetic woman and she longed to do more.
She chaffed at being locked up on the legation grounds and longed to go out and meet the people. She often climbed a ladder and looked down over the outer wall to study the spirit and the local color of the busy panorama in the crowded streets. The hard, primitive methods of the men and women at work, the hungry children, the squalid poverty and misery enlisted her serious attention.