Donaldina Cameron was born on July 26, 1869 on a sheep ranch in New Zealand. The youngest of seven children, the family moved to California when she was three. Her mother died when she was five and the family eventually moved to a sheep ranch in the San Gabriel Valley. Cameron was engaged at 19 but never married. 

When Cameron was 26 the mother of a family friend convinced Cameron to volunteer a year at the Occidental Mission House at 920 Sacramento in San Francisco’s ChinaTown. The Occidental Mission House was established in 1873 by the Presbyterian Church for the purpose of rescuing Chinese girls from slavery, indentured servitude and prostitution. At the time, young girls were brought into the country with false papers that claimed they were the relative of an existing Chinese American resident. They were immediately sold as domestic servants and when they reached puberty they were sold again into prostitution. Their lives were brutal, and most died within five years. City officials turned a blind eye to what was going on: Chinese tongs (gangs) paid kickbacks to City officials to look the other way. 

Cameron moved into the Mission House, run by Margaret Culberton, to teach sewing. When Culberton died a year after Cameron’s arrival, Cameron took over as Superintendent. People would leave anonymous notes indicating a place where a girl was held captive and Cameron orchestrated raids with a handful of policemen. The tongs nicknamed her Fahn Quai (White Devil) and spread the rumor that Cameron drank the blood of freed women to keep her vitality. Because of this, Cameron always brought one of the young women in her care with her during raids to be both an interpreter and to reassure the girls that Cameron’s motives were pure. Tye Leung^[1], a rescued victim who would go on to become the first Chinese American woman to both work for the federal government and vote in a national election, assisted in some of these raids. But Cameron relied most heavily on Tien Fuh Wu, who had been rescued by Culberton from a gambling den on Jackson a year before Cameron arrived. Wu and Cameron grew to have a mother/daughter relationship and Wu spent the remainder of her life working at the Mission House. It should be noted that, once freed, rescued girls were forced to reside at the Mission House and convert to Christianity. Many of those rescued balked at the idea of converting and ran away. But the majority stayed. Cameron helped with their education and found suitable husbands. 

During the 1906 Earthquake and Fires^[2], the Mission House was forced to evacuate. Cameron went back that night to retrieve a logbook detailing her guardianship of the girls, thus ensuring their safety. The building was dynamited in a futile effort to stop the progress of the fire. It was rebuilt at the same site, using bricks salvaged from the original building. Cameron hired San Francisco architect Julia Morgan^[3] for the job and instructed her to design a basement with hidden passages where the girls could hide if necessary. Unfortunately, a few years later, a fire broke out in the building and several girls died in a room meant to save them. 

It is believed that Cameron rescued more than 2,000 Chinese women and girls. When she retired in 1934, Wu took over many of her responsibilities. Cameron eventually settled in Palo Alto with two surviving sisters. In 1942 the Mission House was renamed the Donaldina Cameron House, and over time its focus changed from rescue missions to serving low-income Chinese immigrants. When Wu retired in 1951 she moved into a cottage next door to Cameron. 

Cameron died in 1968 at the age of 98. Wu, who died seven years later, was buried next to her.

^[1] Tye Leung: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3757

^[2] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849

^[3] Julia Morgan: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4408