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Hui-lan Koo
OEI HUI-LAN (1889-1992), known as Madame Wellington Koo, was a Chinese-Indonesian international socialite and style icon, and, from late 1926-1927, the First Lady of the Republic of China. She was ...view moreOEI HUI-LAN (1889-1992), known as Madame Wellington Koo, was a Chinese-Indonesian international socialite and style icon, and, from late 1926-1927, the First Lady of the Republic of China. She was the wife of the pre-communist Chinese statesman Wellington Koo, as well as a daughter and the heiress of the colonial Indonesian tycoon Oei Tiong Ham, Majoor der Chinezen.
Born into an affluent Chinese family in Semarang, Central Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Hui-lan moved to London with her mother and older sister in 1918 and entered high society. In 1921 she married Wellington Koo, a famous Chinese diplomat, and moved to Beijing in 1922, where her husband served as Foreign Minister and Finance Minister of the Republic of China. He served twice as Acting Premier, and during his second term also acted as President of the Republic of China.
In 1927 the couple settled down in Shanghai, before relocating to Paris in 1932 and London in 1940 for Wellington Koo’s Chinese Ambassador appointments, as well as representation of China as one of the UN’s founding members.
Madame Wellington Koo moved to New York City in 1941 to be near her two sons, and to use her international connections to persuade the U.S. to join the war on the Allied side to help China’s war effort in Asia. The Koos later divorced, and Madame Koo spent the remainder of her life in New York City, where she died in 1992.
MARY VAN RENSSELAER THAYER (1902-1983) was a newspaper columnist and author. Born in New York City and graduated from Barnard College, she began her career after traveling to the Soviet Union in 1929-1930 and writing articles about her trips. She moved to Washington during WWII and worked for Nelson Rockefeller. She was accredited to the Potsdam conference in 1945. She joined The Washington Post in 1948 until 1950, and was a representative of the Magnum picture agency until she retired in the early 1970s. She died in 1983.view less
Books by Hui-lan Koo
Hui-lan Koo [Madame Wellington Koo]: An Autobiography, as Told to Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer