A Sun-Times reporter discovers 'Mr. Main's House,' an ancestor’s family retreat in China

For most of my life, China existed in my family as a distant but persistent presence — a place spoken of in fragments, attached to old photos and diaries about a great-grandfather who spent decades there as an American missionary.I have never visited China. I don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese.But my great-grandfather, William Artyn Main, considered China home for much of his life.He arrived there in 1896, shortly after graduating from Northwestern University and marrying his wife, Emma.Assigned...