A native of Pang Zhuang 龐莊, Shangdong, Hou was a third-generation Christian whose grandfather Hou Shengqing 侯聖清 had been the first to convert to Christianity in Pang Zhuang. The Hou family played an important role in starting mission schools in Pang Zhuang. Hou graduated with high honors from Tungchow College [North China Union College] near Beijing (SB 05/27/1914), a mission institution that had prepared him for a teaching career at another mission school. Consequently, before coming to Grinnell, Hou had taught for a year and half at the Boys’ Academy in Pangkiachuang [Pang Zhuang], the seed of what later became Grinnell-in-China. Hou left China in early 1914, landed in San Fransico where during the summer he studied English at the local YMCA; he arrived in Grinnell in September 1914 (Grinnell Review vol. 10 [October 1914]:7). 

The College’s student newspaper described Hou as “an excellent English student…desirous of continuing his studies in this country” (SB 05/27/1914). In addition to his studies, Hou participated in plenty of extracurricular activities on or beyond campus. For instance, soon after arrival he spoke on the beginnings of Chinese language to Professor Steiner’s class on Race Problems (SB 10/28/1914) and the following spring spoke about mission work in China to the campus YWCA (SB 04/17/1915). At the 1915 junior class picnic he played the flute (SB 05/19/1915) and in spring 1916 he offered a class on Chinese language and literature every Saturday from 11 to noon. Summer 1916 he joined scores of other Grinnell students at the YMCA Geneva Conference in Wisconsin (SB 09/15/1915). In recognition of his good academic standing and spirit for public service Hou was elected class secretary of the graduating class of 1916 (SB 12/01/1915). 

Upon graduation in 1916, Hou received a Chinese government scholarship to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (SB 09/16/1916), causing him to postpone his trip home and extend his studies in the U.S. for another year, at the end of which he earned an MA degree. Cognizant of the good fortune that made it possible for him to gain a top-notch American education, Hou made sacrifices in his personal life. When he left China in 1914 he left behind his wife and three children, the oldest of whom was only eight at the time (GR 08/30/1917); he had to wait four years before reuniting with his family.  

“China would become one of the greatest nations in the world,” Hou once told a reporter, if enough people could come to the US to study and return to China to educate their fellow countrymen (GR 08/30/1917). This firm belief in the efficacy of American education and a sense of mission to his compatriots sustained Hou through his years of study in the US and through his subsequent teaching career at Grinnell-in-China. In 1919 he wrote in a letter that he was “planting the seeds of a real democracy” in the young minds at Grinnell-in-China while reminiscing about “the fellowship and the Grinnell spirit… in those pleasant years” when he was a student at Grinnell (SB 04/19/1919). In 1925 Forrest Chapman (’24), on his way to Grinnell-in-China, met Hou and enjoyed a fine reunion with a fellow Grinnellian 8,000 miles away from their alma mater (SB 01/28/1925). This was, unfortunately, also the last that we heard about E. H. Hou.