War and Marriage: Fiance Back from Expedition, Barbara Schurman Will be Wed While Guns Boom in Shanghai
The Ithaca Journal, February 12, 1932, P. 9.
"The warfare between Japan and China cuts no ice with romance, and Miss Barbara Schurman, who was born in Ithaca while her father was president of Cornell University, will be wed in Peiping, China, tomorrow.
Her fiance returned today from a perilous scientific expedition into the vast wilderness of Central Asia, and Miss Schurman was at Peiping to greet him.
Tomorrow she will be married, at the American legation, to Vladimir Basilovich Petro-Pavlosky, Russian engineer with the Haardt-Citroen expedition.
Miss Schurman is the daughter of Jacob Gould Schurman, noted American diplomat and former Cornell president. She had been residing with him of late at BedfordaHills, N.Y., but left for Shanghal early in December to meet her fiance.
--Here Last October--
She is a cousin of Mrs. Charles L. Durham, 101 West Upland Road. Last October she was a guest in Ithaca of Prof. and Mrs. Walter F. Willcox, 3 South Avenue, attending a Cornell football game.
The Japanese attack on Shanghai was as yet undreamed when Miss Schurman left for China. She knew her fiance was in constant danger, but little thought she was placing herself also in a dangerous situation, to meet him. She was a guest of U. S. Consul-General Edwin S. Cunningham in Shanghai when the trouble broke out. How she travelled from Shanghai to Peiping is not known-but there she was, according to The Associated Press.
Miss Schurman became acquainted with Mr. Petro-Pavlosky while her father was American minister to China. Her fiance is an exiled 'White' Russian, residing in China. They had now been separated for nearly a year, while he accompanied the expedition which today completed an 8,000-mile trek across Asia to bring him back for the wedding.
--Held in Captivity--
The Associated Press said: 'Members of the expedition told a thrilling tale of how the love affair almost came to a disastrous end in Chinese Turkestan. Petro-Pavlosky, who helped organize an auxiliary unit which went from Peiping into Chinese Turkestan to meet the main body of explorers, was held in virtual captivity for three months in Hami, Chinese Turkestan.
The Russian had gone there to guard expedition supplies and shortly there began a siege by Mohammedan rebels. The Russian was faced with the prospect of placing himself at the mercy of the besiegers or remaining in Hami, but finally succeeded in escaping by automobile into an unknown section of the Taklamakan desert with a Chinese officer.
There followed much travelling, but Petro-Pavlosky finally succeeded in reaching Urmchi just in time to meet the main expedition on its arrival from Aksu.
The adventurers with the noted Frenchman, Georges-Marie Haardt as their leader, left Beirut, Syria, April 4, 1931. They followed the trail roughly blazed centuries ago by Marco Polo, but had modern tractor-driven automobiles to get them through the unknown areas of the continent."