Arrangement: chronological.

Chiefly letters from Swain Wu to Alfred Earle Garrett, Jr., with one letter to Garrett from Koo Lih Teh, and one from Lucy Wu to Evelyn Garrett. Some photographs are attached to letters with which they were enclosed. Swain Wu used the name Swain Wool when he was a student at William and Mary and at Columbia. Sometime after his return to China, he began writing Woo and then Wu. He returned to the United States in 1963 as Swain Wu.

The earliest letter in the collection is from Wu at the College of William and Mary during the Christmas holiday to Garrett at home in Danville, Va. The next letters are from Wu when he was working in Suffolk, Va., in the summer of 1929 to Garrett at school in Williamsburg, Va. Letters from the fall of 1929 describe Wu's work in New York City and study at Columbia University. Letters from the spring of 1930 discuss Wu's studies and social life at William and Mary.

In the early 1930s, Wu's letters focus on his personal life. The 1931 letters were written when Wu was on his way to China and after he arrived there. One was written soon after his arrival and another later in the year when he was teaching economics at Ginling College in Nanking. He described his students, other teachers, Charles Lindbergh's visit to the school, and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The 1932 letters give an account of Japan's attack on Shanghai, where Wu was vacationing in January. Later in the year, Wu described his starting to work in the accounting department of Realty Investment Co. in Shanghai. He also discussed the currency exchange rate. In 1933, Wu's letters mention his part-time teaching at the Shanghai University Business School and his move from Realty Investment to the Shanghai office of National City Bank of New York. There is discussion of the exchange rate and of Wu's belief in women's profligacy. He congratulated Garrett on receiving his law degree and consoled him on the death of his brother Tom. Wu discussed some of the demands of his job in his 1934 letter and his breakup with a potential fiancee. In 1935, Wu congratulated Garrett on his wife's pregnancy and intimated that he planned to leave his job because it did not pay enough to support a wife.

There are fewer letters from the latter half of the decade. These letters are more focused on the political situation in China. In the first letter of 1936, Wu ruminated on the likelihood of war with Japan. He described conflict as increasingly likely due to a report of the assassination of conservative Japanese leaders, leaving young radical army elements in control of the Japanese government. Chinese national unity in the face of the war is the theme of 1937's correspondence. Wu also alluded to China's need for airplanes and supplies from the United States and Great Britain. In 1938, Wu discussed the spirit of the Chinese people and his hope that the United States would keep gasoline, scrap iron, and bombs from reaching Japan. Chinese morale was again a theme in 1939, along with the currency exchange rate, the cost of living, and Wu's approval of the abrogation by the United States of a 1911 trade agreement with Japan.

Letters of 1940 and 1941 are mostly about Wu's engagement and marriage. In 1940, Wu announced his engagement and his plans to move to Peking. He also described China's need for money, ammunition, and medical supplies. In 1941, Wu announced his marriage and move to Peking, where he worked for the government and taught at Yenching University. He also discussed the high cost of living.

Letters from Wu to Garrett in 1946 report family news, news of Wu's activities during the war, and his plans for the future. In these and in a letter written in 1948, Wu expressed his wish to leave China and live in the United States.

A 1948 letter from Koo Lih Teh, who described himself as Garrett's adopted son, wishes him a merry Christmas.

When Wu re-established contact with Garrett in 1959, he described traveling from Peking to Macao as a refugee in 1957, leaving behind all his household goods and money. Wu described the impossibility of living on the salary he earned teaching at the Y.M.C.A. College of Hong Kong and asked for Garrett's help in finding a job in the United States so that he could move his family from Macao to the United States. Correspondence, 1959-1962, focuses on Wu's efforts to move to the United States and Garrett's assistance in that endeavor. Nearly all of the letters after 1962 are from Wu to Garrett, describing his family's new life and work in New York City.

The last letter in the collection is a condolence letter, 1998, from Lucy Wu, widow of Swain Wu, to Evelyn Garrett on the death of Albert Earle Garrett.

A few undated Christmas cards from Wu to Garrett are also included in the the correspondence.

A North Carolina Public School Register filled with song lyrics, written in the hand of Albert Earle Garrett, Sr. (b. 1882). There is no date or school name associated with the notebook, but Clara Garrett Fountain, granddaughter of Albert Earle Garrett, Sr., believes that the register lists children at the school at Sylvania, N.C., 10 miles west of Sharp's Institute, where Garrett, Sr., was the only teacher in 1902, or at New Bethel Academy in 1908 where he taught for one school session.

A signed photograph of Swain Wu as a young man, undated; a photograph of Wu taken in Macao in 1958; a photograph of Wu with his wife and daughter, 20 December 1946; a photograph of Wu with his wife, daughter, and son, taken in Macao, 1 August 1959; and a photograph of Wu's son Jimmy at age 6, taken in Peking.