James Avent Passports: Chinese and American, 1919

Standard Vacuum Oil Office, Chengchow, China, 1920

Meeting of cultures: Chinese Farmer and Standard Oil Representative, Northern China - James Avent, 1920s

Beginning of a day’s journey. Honan Province. A Buddhist shrine, typical in the countryside, sits at the edge of the road - James Avent, 1920

Cave Dwellings - James Avent, 1920

Old Man- James Avent, 1920s

Stuck in the mud on the Great Northwest Highway - James Avent, 1920

Ferry over the Yellow River, 22 Hours in duration - James Avent 1920s

A round of golf.: Western residents of China often tried to introduce and maintain what they could of their lifestyles back home - James Avent, 1920s

Polo: Western residents of China often tried to introduce and maintain what they could of their lifestyles back home - James Avent, 1920s

Beach Picnic, Tsingtao, China - James Avent, 1927

Russian Building, Tsingtao? - James Avent, 1920s

Standard Vacuum Oil Office Staff, Tientsin, China, 1930. Avent is second row seated 12th from right. 

Standard Vacuum Oil Office Staff, Tsingtao, China, 1936.  Avent is front row 4th from right.

Standard Vacuum Oil Office Farewell for James Avent, Tsingtao, China, 1938. Avent, sitting front right, was being transferred to the Shanghai office.

Westerners, Chinese, and a pet dog - James Avent, 1920s

Women with ice skates, Northern China - James Avent, 1920s

At a Party - James Avent, 1920s

James Avent with two Chinese colleagues - James Avent, 1920s

Costume Party: Western residents of China often tried to introduce and maintain what they could of their lifestyles back home - James Avent, 1920s

Russian? Crew-member, a curious Chinese Girl, Chinese police, on board a steamer - James Avent, 1920s

Old and new and a meeting of cultures on an expedition - James Avent, 1920s

Dudley “Mush Morton” - later a famed WWII American Submarine Skipper, Tsingtao, China, 1936. Morton married Harriet Nelson, sister of Avent’s wife Jeanette, in Tsingtao that year.

Harriet Nelson Morton, wife of famed WWI American Submarine Skipper Dudley “Mush” Morton, met her future husband while visiting her sister Jeanette Avent and brother-in-law James Avent in Tsingtao in 1936.

Found on the back of an old framed picture in 1997, this Shanghai Newspaper front page from 1938 is a tangible reminder that the world can always be worse than it is today.  China had already been under attack from Japan for a number of years and the Second World War was beginning in earnest.

Shanghai Bund, December 1945. This print was widely published in a local Shanghai newspaper to commemorate the visit of the American Fleet after  the end of the Second World War. The print was made from a photograph taken from a hot air ballon above the Bund. The photograph was likely done by George Lacks of Life Magazine.

Jeanette and James Avent at their home Mei Kan (later Rivendell), Sewanee, Tennessee, 1981. A print of the Shanghai Bund and Chinese porcelain are on the walls.

Ownby Cabin above Jake’s Creek, before 1918, later the Mayna Treanor Avent Studio, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Photographer unknown.

Mayna Treanor Avent Studio, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This print by Mayna Treanor Avent, mother of James Avent, was done in 1924 and later used in the 1990’s on a flier to preserve Elkmont from destruction.

James Avent, Jake’s Creek, Smoky Mountains National park, 1980’s.