A Rajasthani servant in 1910s Berkeley
I discovered a strange World War 1 draft card. The mystery of Natio Lee led me back to an Indian orphanage.
I spent the first year of COVID-19 trying to uncover the stories of early South Asians in Berkeley, California. Many of them were UC Berkeley students, Ghadar revolutionaries, or Punjabi laborers.
But then I came across a particularly confusing 1917 World War I draft card:
The document describes a 24-year-old man named Natio Lee born in Ajmir, Rajputhana, India in 1893. He worked as a servant for a Mrs. Ada Lee, and lived at 1806 Cedar Street in Berkeley, California. He was single, “Malayan” (a term used for Indians and others), and hadn’t applied for citizenship.
How did a man from Rajasthan end up working as a servant in a California? I began to dig, trying to uncover his story.
How Natio came to America
In 1914, Natio, a twenty-year-old man from Ajmer in present-day Rajasthan boarded the SS Nile, sailing to San Francisco. He was five feet tall, with pierced ears, carrying $40, and literate in Bengali. He traveled with Mrs. Ada Lee, an American missionary in Calcutta who brought Natio to the other side of the planet as a servant, then left him behind to craft a new life.
Natio traveled from Hong Kong to San Francisco in second class, alongside a mix of Asian and White passengers. The rest of Natio’s party traveled in the premium cabin class. While Natio might not be traveling as his companions’ equal, he must have been relieved not to be placed in the lesser “Asiatic” class.
Leading the party was Mrs. Ada Lee, a white American missionary who had spent decades working in India. She moved from West Virginia to India in 1876, and married another missionary. The couple would go on to lose six of their young children in a disaster in Darjeeling. The Lees worked through their heartbreak, founded the Lee Memorial Mission in Calcutta, and raised their two remaining children, Albert and Frank, both born in Calcutta. In 1914, Mrs. Ada Lee, her sons, and Natio made the long journey to California so that the boys could be enrolled in an American school.
Natio and the Lees were initially bound for Los Angeles, home to Ada’s parents and siblings. But by 1916, she, her sons, and Natio had moved to Berkeley, California, joined by her husband David who had arrived on a later ship.
Tracing Natio back to Calcutta
What kind of name is “Natio Lee”? “Lee” was his employers’ family name, but what of “Natio”? The clues lead back to Calcutta.
Ada Lee wrote several books about her missionary evangelism and relief work. In her 1909 book In and Out of the Homes of India, she described her mission’s work with Bengalis and Marwaris impacted by famines, possibly in the wake of the Indian famine of 1899–1900 which devastated areas like Rajputana.
In the book, Lee described saving over fifty boys from famine-impacted areas, some of whom arrived as young teenagers and had since grown up, establishing livelihoods in the trades, and getting married. She dedicated a short chapter to the story of a young man named Nathio:
Nathio was one of our famine boys. He came to our home in Calcutta with nine other boys, nearly starved, and covered with sores. We knew very little about him. His parents, brothers and sisters had all perished in the famine. How he escaped, it was hard to say, a day or two more on the famine field, with no food or water, and the wolf hunger would have added another victim to his thousands of innocent children. But Nathio reached us in time and gradually grew strong and well, and began to work and study for he was a boy of fourteen when he came. He learned rapidly, and was a nice quiet boy who did a great deal of thinking and kept it to himself.
Lee praised Nathio’s honesty, and and his refusal to convert to Christianity until he could bring himself to confess sins like breaking a guest’s bicycle, and smoking on the sly. He would become a faithful Christian, eventually marrying, and having a daughter.
The details don’t all match perfectly, but the “Natio” in 1910s California could have been either “Nathio,” the young orphaned famine survivor, or possiby one of the other young Rajasthani men at the Calcutta mission. “Nathio” can, at least in the Gujarati Bhatia community, be a name given to boys whose older brothers have died; I don’t know if this is also the case in Nathio’s Rajasthani community, but if it were, it might certainly have applied to many of these boys who had lost all their siblings.
Natio’s new life in Berkeley
We have very few details on Natio’s years in Berkeley. What was it like being a guest worker? Was he doing housework, cooking, or helping the Lees in other ways? Did he ever join Mrs. Ada Lee at her public talks? Were there moments when he could feel like an equal to his coreligionist employers?
Natio was one of dozens of Indians in Berkeley at the time. What was his reaction when he traveled thousands of miles to a nation of White Christians, only to run into so many people from home, but with often very different origins?
When Natio walked to downtown Berkeley, did he say hello to all the Indian students on Center Street, the Chandra clan, curio shop owner Vaishno and his wife Kala Bagai, or fortune teller Boor Singh? Did he ever connect with Angnu Ahir, who worked as a janitor, or freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai? Was he following the Hindu-German conspiracy trial, which made local and national headlines in 1917?
Natio leaves the Lees
The Lee boys eventually began their education in Berkeley. Frank studied medicine at the University of California, and Albert enrolled at Berkeley High School, where he played violin in the orchestra. The house started to empty out. Ada Lee’s husband David returned to India in 1916, and Frank had moved to nearby accommodations by 1917.
Ada Lee returned to India in 1918. By 1920, the Lee brothers were living with Albert’s fiancee’s family at 1706 Walnut, leaving Natio to find his own housing and work.
Did Natio feel abandoned in a faraway country as the Lees left, one by one? Or did he feel a sense of freedom, finally able to chart his own course without having to bear the weight of being a missionary’s servant?
Natio moved out and found work. The 1920 census shows him renting a room at 1945 University Avenue in Berkeley, working as a hotel dishwasher. The next year, he moved to 506 Castro Street in Oakland, working as a laborer, living with another White worker.
The end of the trail
Natio was still living in Oakland, working as a laborer, in 1921. And then he disappears from the records. There are no subsequent records of a Natio Lee.
Did Natio return to India? Frank and Albert Lee would soon both get married, and passport records show that they likely returned to Calcutta by ship in summer 1923. The United States does not keep records of outgoing passengers, so it’s difficult to tell if Natio was able to return to India with the Lees.
Or did he stay on in the United States, blending into immigrant communities, maybe changing his name? It wouldn’t be surprising if he found work elsewhere, given his background. He not only knew the Lees, but had worked for years in their home, learning the English language and American cultural mores.
There are many ways Natio’s story could have gone, but there’s one version I like best. In a 1926 Oakland, California city directory, I found a lone reference to a laborer named “Natio Flores” married to “Manuelita,” living at 3465 Helen Street. Did Natio marry Manuelita Flores and take her last name? We can’t know for sure, but I’d like to imagine a world where a Rajasthani orphan could cross oceans, fall in love with a Mexican woman, choose to take her name, and finally vanish into a culturally-mixed Oakland.
The illustration of Natio Lee is by Navya Johnson, and is based on the few physical details mentioned in his 1914 immigration documents and 1917 draft card. The background imagery is from a 1912 photo of Telegraph Avenue.
References
- Nathio and the Lee mission are described in her 1909 book:
Lee, Ada (1909). In and out of the homes of India. Calcutta, India: Methodist Press. (Archive, HathiTrust) - One possible source of “Nathio” name:
Enthoven, R. E. (1922). The Tribes And Castes Of Bombay, Volume I. Government Central Press, Bombay, p. 136. (Sources: 1, 2) - Natio’s 1914 arrival in the United States, from ship manifest:
Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At Honolulu, Hawaii, Compiled 02/13/1900 - 12/30/1953; NAI Number: A3422; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787 - 2004; Record Group Number: RG 85. (Ancestry 1, 2, 3) - Natio’s 1914 immigration records from his arrival in San Francisco, with physical description:
Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at San Francisco, CA, 1893–1953 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M1410, roll 75, line number 3, record id 004893390_00039_2); Digital Folder Number 004893390, Image Number 00039-s. (MyHeritage) - Natio’s 1914 arrival in the Early Arrival Records Search
- David Lee joins the family in 1915:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At Honolulu, Hawaii, Compiled 02/13/1900–12/30/1953; NAI Number: A3422; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787–2004; Record Group Number: RG 85. (Ancestry) - The Lees coming to the U.S. for children’s education:
“Missionary Speaks Tomorrow”. Imperial Valley Press. El Centro, California. February 26, 1916. p. 4. - David Lee returning to India in 1916:
“Noted Missionary at Wesley Church”. Berkeley Daily Gazette (evening ed.). Berkeley, California. August 17, 1916. p. 3. - Ada Lee’s 1916 Berkeley, CA voter registration at 1806 Cedar (Ancestry)
- Albert Lee in the 1916 Berkeley High School yearbook:
Olla Podrida [Dec 1916]. Berkeley, California: Berkeley High School. 1916. pp. 53–54. (Archive, Ancestry) - Natio Lee’s 1917 draft card, which started this whole search:
United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, California > Berkeley City no 2; A-Macintosh, Allan D. > image 2972 of 3180. (Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage) - Albert C. Lee at 1806 Cedar in 1917 phone directory:
Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda city directory. Oakland, California: Polk-Husted Directory Co. 1921. p. 670. (Archive) - Ada Lee’s 1918 passport application describes intent to return to India:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 462; Volume #: Roll 0462 — Certificates: 3500–3749, 30 Jan 1918–31 Jan 1918 (Ancestry) - Frank Lee’s 1918 draft card:
United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, California > Berkeley City no 2; A-Macintosh, Allan D. > image 2966 of 3180. (FamilySearch, Ancestry) - Natio Lee working as a dishwasher, living by himself, in 1920 Census:
United States Census, 1920, California > Alameda > Berkeley > ED 186 > image 24 of 40. (Ancestry, FamilySearch) - Frank and Albert Lee in 1920 Census:
United States Census, 1920, California > Alameda > Berkeley > ED 191 > image 8 of 32). (Ancestry, FamilySearch) - Natio Lee in Oakland in 1921:
Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda city directory. Oakland, California: Polk-Husted Directory Co. 1921. p. 670. (Archive, Ancestry) - Albert Lee’s 1923 passport application to return to India:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Volume #: Volume 12: Special Series — San Francisco. Filmstrip page 634. (Ancestry) - Frank Lee’s 1923 passport application to return to India:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Volume #: Volume 12: Special Series — San Francisco. Filmstrip page 582. (Ancestry) - Frank Warne Lee and Albert Clarence Lee public pages on FamilySearch
- Natio and Manuela Flores in 1926:
Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda city directory. Oakland, California: Polk-Husted Directory Co. 1926. p. 689. (Archive, Ancestry, MyHeritage)
