Margie Rae (Ellerman) Eucalyptus was born in Los Angeles County, California to Harriet (Shirk) and Alfred Ellerman. She grew up in Arizona and moved to Fayette, Missouri for high school. She attended Central Methodist College and married Gene McFadden with whom she had 3 children.

During this time, she became a Quaker and was active in the Quaker American Friends Service Committee. She was also involved in the women’s liberation movement and worked to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. constitution. After her divorce, she changed her name to that of her favorite tree: Eucalyptus.

Eucalyptus helped to establish the Midwest chapter of the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association in 1975 at the Penn Valley Society of Friends Meeting House in Kansas City. The U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association was established in 1974 to strengthen people-to-people diplomacy between American and Chinese people. Before diplomatic relations between China and the U.S. were normalized in 1979, tours facilitated by the group were one of the only ways ordinary Americans could visit China. Eucalyptus gathered applications for trips, set up programs, and established a library for the local chapter.

[Information gathered from findagrave.com and the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association website, uscpfa.org.]