I first wrote about the near death of Hsueh M. “Tammy” Buhler’s son, Buck, almost three decades ago, but I didn’t meet Tammy face to face until I walked the track at Valdosta Middle School with her and my sister this past spring. It was there she told me her fascinating story:

The former Buddhist from Taiwan, who only spoke a few words of English, was given by her father to a GI (Dusty Buhler) to marry; she was later taken from her relatives and homeland to the States when their daughter was only a few weeks old. It was there she discovered her husband was divorced (considered a disgrace by her culture) and that he had three children, who would come to live with them after their tour of duty in Turkey. The family had no funds for her to return home when a family member in Taiwan was dying. She would later face the near death of her son, then 3, when he fell off the back of a pickup truck. Earlier this year, as a bank teller, she would face her own possible death when robbers entered her bank and shot the bank vice president in the leg.

The beginning

Tammy grew up in a small village in Shanwa Township, Tainan County, Taiwan, the second of six children and the oldest of the three girls. Her family and extended family all lived in the same area. She completed the sixth grade in her homeland.

“Parents want the boys to get an education, but the girls have to learn how to cook, take care of the home and children, and work in the fields,” Tammy said.

“Girls only go to school when there is no work to do, unless the family is rich.”

Her family worshipped Buddha.

“Everyone’s house had an altar and a carved figure of Buddha or a god they worshipped,” she said. “There are hundreds of carved images inside the temple, and people take them home for them to worship.

“We became very poor when my father became very sick with cancer, and we gave everything we owned to the Buddha and the temple (for him to get well).”

In Taiwan, the custom is for the father to choose the husband for his daughter.

“Parents will seek fortune teller for advice for everything, including who the daughters will marry. My father went to the fortune teller and told him that someday I would marry a stranger from far away.”

After her father got well from his cancer, Tammy, at age 16, went to work in a nearby large city, working seven days a week with only one day a month off.

“We had no choice because we needed money,” she said. “I saved every penny to give to my parents, except for bus fare.”