THE LEGACY OF HELEN WONG KEE
FTHE LEGACY OF HELEN WONG KEE
BY Gerrye Wong April 10, 2020
It’s always a task to write about one’s mother. Usually it is a task never completed but always with good intentions.The only good aspect of this Corona virus is the stay in place quarantine.
It makes one stay home in isolation! Our excuses usually for some tasks that are ever-present non-moving on our “to do” lists is because we claim to be too busy with too little time. Well, this staying-in-place mandate is now giving us plenty of time in isolation for many a month so the time is now! Thus I decided to do some reminiscing and dedicate this column to my mother in advance of Mothers Day during this uncertain year. This one’s for you, Mom – Helen Wong Kee.
Caption: Helen and Clara Wong with unknown staff member at Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco Chinatown
Helen Wong was only 2 ½ years old when her father abandoned the family and returned to China without her. A much older man than her mother, he had a second wife in China to return to. My grandmother, Helen’s mother, on the other hand, was born on a ship coming to America, so her life as an American citizen was one very westernized. Not wanting to go to China to be beholden to do all that first wife wished of her, a tradition long accepted in the Chinese culture, Grandma Wong found herself left with two young daughters, Helen and Clara. An attractive woman, she soon met a Mr. Eng, who wanted to marry and take her with him to Pendleton, Oregon where he worked in a restaurant. Unfortunately, he didn’t want the two little girls, so she left them with their half brother, a man at least 30 years older offspring of Mr. Wong’s first wife.
Donaldina Cameron, a Presbyterian missionary working in San Francisco Chinatown, somehow learned of two little girls being kept by a noted gambler and prostitute wife, and believing that this was not a good upbringing for little girls, took the girls away from what she considered an unsavory environment, we guess.
Caption: Presbyterian Mission Home at 920 Sacramento Street, San Francisco Chinatown
Thus, my mother, 2 ½ year-old Helen Wong, with 5 year-old sister Clara, went under Cameron’s wings, and lived at 920 Sacramento Street, known as the Presbyterian Mission home for young girls in 1909. Besides taking in young girls whose parents were unable to care for them, Cameron also rescued many young Chinese girls enslaved to become prostitutes. Probably due to overcrowding and in order to separate the innocent girls from those enslaved ones, in 1915 Donaldina Cameron found a house in Oakland, CA which she turned into a home for 32 young girls.
According to records, there was a second move soon after to a larger facility they named Tooker Home, in recognition of two sisters who generously donated funds for its purchase. Although we have no records, we are assuming the two little Wong girls grew up there in Oakland under the strict tutelage of teachers hired by Donaldina Cameron in this orphanage group living environment.
Caption: Growing up in San Francisco Chinatown as seen with Presbyterian Mission staff members .
My mother rarely spoke of her life in an orphanage, but told “Bamboo Woman” author Nona Wyman, in an interview, that Baby-Bye was her nickname as she was always singing this tune. It went “ Baby-Bye, shut your little eye.. Go to Sleep and say Good Bye.” Another person living with her at the Oakland Tooker House remembered Helen was also referred to as “China Doll” for she was especially tiny for her age. When she only grew to 4’10” as an adult and people commented on her being so tiny, she would kiddingly retort with her winning smile,”I was the last one born in my family and they didn’t have enough to make me, and that’s why I’m so small!”
Caption: Photo courtesy of “White Devil’s Daughter” by Julia Stiles.
Many people remembered that the little Tooker Home girls, dressed in two piece Chinese outfits, regularly were marched into the Chinese Presbyterian Church in the heart of Oakland’s Chinatown for regular Sunday service, to everyone’s delight, I am sure. Often some of the Tooker House girls were brought to San Francisco to appear with Cameron and their teachers at an Occidental Board meeting, dressed in their Chinese outfits to sing or speak. Helen, usually the tiniest and probably the cutest, often was asked to recite before the Board. She could rattle off all the books of the Bible, but one time when she came to Leviticus and Deuteronomy, her childish stumbling inability to pronounce these words charmed the Board audience.
On another occasion when she was the chosen Tooker Home girl to perform before the Board, according to the Book, “Chinatown’s Angry Angel”, my mother was asked by a Board member, “Will you say a Bible verse for me?” She smiled innocently and recited, “Be sure your sins will find you out.” to the gasping audience. Obviously with her singing and fearless stage presence, my mother must have been one of the most vocal in this home for young Chinese girls. It is a shame she didn’t share other anecdotes of her life growing in this loving but regimented life in this Presbyterian home. In her adult years, I remember that she remained good friends with many of the teachers and the girls she grew up with there, and we would visit them as well as Miss Donaldina Cameron, her personal savior, often throughout her life.
Caption: Helen Wong attending college in San Jose in 1926.
Unusual for the time, my mother Helen Wong attended San Jose State Teachers College, boarding as a house girl with a family, a very common practice at that time for poor students in need of housing and employment. I often wondered who encouraged or paid for her to seek a college degree but never dared ask her. Just months before graduation, an unfortunate incident occurred where the employer made inappropriate advances, so my frightened mother quickly retreated back to seek solace and advice from her former Ming Quong Home mentors, and unfortunately never returned to finish her college career. Instead, in 1929, she took a secretarial job at the San Francisco Fillmore Street National Dollar Store, met a fellow clerk, my father, Bill Kee, and the rest was the Kee Family history.
Caption: Helen participated in Bakersfield’s Pioneer Day Celebrations in 1934.
My cunning mother, probably looking to her own future after suffering a childhood as a poor orphan, vowed to only marry the ambitious Bill Kee if he ever made managership. Setting his own goals, with her and career, he became a National Dollar Store manager the following year, and together they made a life in the depth of the Depression years in Bakersfield, CA. I was born there and vague memories are of hot summers where the treat of the day was when the ice truck arrived to deliver a block of ice for our ice box and as a treat,the friendly driver would smile kindly and
give me and my mother a sliver of ice to suck on sitting on our front porch.
Caption: Proud parents Bill and Helen Kee with first born Gerrye in 1933.
Five years later in 1938 , Bill Kee earned a promotion to managing one of the largest department stores in San Jose and they raised our family of two daughters throughout the next 10 years there. Somehow during those early years of her marriage, my grandmother and my mother were reunited, and although I was too young to know how it came about, I remember a few happy vacations visiting her living in Pendleton, Oregon.
In San Jose, husband Bill became a leader in both the business and Chinese American community, and my mother was a supportive housewife, making friends in both the Caucasian and Chinese American world. She was equally fluent in her Chinese say-yup dialect and English so melded well in both segments of the community during the tumultuous World War II years. Second daughter Cheryle was born in San Jose.
Caption: Adjusting to married life in Bakersfield, San Jose and Oakland as wife and mother.
Another switch came to Helen’s life in 1947 when my father Bill Kee became the manager of the headquarters store of the National Dollar Stores, located in the heart of downtown San Francisco, and moved our family to Oakland. With my sister entering elementary school at that time, Helen became active in the local PTA, eventually becoming President of the Lakeview School chapter. This was the beginning of her career as a civic leader in her own right, it seems, reaching into her 40s.
Returning to her Oakland roots must have been a turning point in her life. She returned to the Oakland Presbyterian Church where she used to worship as a little Tooker Home girl and Ming Quong Home choir member and became an active officer of the church’s Women’s Club. She is still dearly remembered as the Orchid lady who would make corsages for all the mothers who attended church on Mothers Day from her own personal orchid garden. To prove her importance and influence in the church, when in her 80s still driving herself to church, the revered parking space in front of the church was unofficially reserved for her petite figure barely seeing over the steering wheel of her large Oldsmobile sedan!
Caption: Helen with daughter Cheryle and film star Alan Ladd’s daughter Alana in Hollywood visit.
After retiring in his 70s from the National Dollar Stores, a chain now numbering over 50 department stores, where his last position was managing the complete central warehouse of all the merchandise inventory, my father Bill Kee bragged that this was the one and only company he had ever worked for, a feat that not many men could even boast of today. I told him this was like a rags to riches story from part time clerk to 50 years later, one of the top executives of this successful department store empire. I guess my mother chose wisely on marrying the pauper country boy who became a successful businessman after all.
Caption: Bill and Helen were active enjoying events in the Chinese community of San Francisco and Oakland.
In retirement, he was appointed to the Oakland Grand Jury, serving in this community endeavor for many years. Helen, on the other hand, was making a name for herself. In the 1970s, Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson appointed her to the Council on Aging, a position she held for 10 years. In addition, she served on the advisory Board of all of the Oakland Senior Centers for over 20 years. She became known as the vivacious hard-working Chinese lady, petite in stature but big in getting things done. She served as Deacon at her Chinese Presbyterian Church for many years and played a prominent role in the church’s activities and progress. When Oakland’s Chinatown established its first major medical health center to serve the Asian clientele, Helen Kee was one of its first supporters to the Asian Health Services.
Caption: Three generations of Helen’s legacy: granddaughter Kelly, Helen, daughter Gerrye Wong
A dedicated wife, mother of two daughters and 6 grandchildren, Helen Kee, the China Doll called Baby Bye, made a valued life for herself. Growing up in very modest circumstances of a mission home for the early part of her life, she never looked back on it with resentment or seemingly unhappy memories. She continued to go to Ming Quong Home reunions and prided that she was the oldest member to attend their many reunions even to her mid 80s.
Another milestone for Helen Kee was welcoming three great grandsons to her family tree in the 1990s.They all loved visiting her to be treated to her sweet agar snacks served in miniature Dixie cups.
Caption: Helen Kee smiles widely surrounded by three great grandsons Justin, Garrett and Todd, and their mothers, DeeDee Wong and Kelly Matsuura
What is Helen Wong Kee best remembered for? Although she was honored many times, framed commendations, formal accolades and honorarium certificates do not best define a person. Best, I felt, was hearing what her grandchildren remembered of their “Paw Paw”.
Caption: A proud moment for Helen was at grandson Michael Wong’s wedding in Hawaii in 1989
First grandchild, Dr. Michael Wong, who grew up knowing her in her 50s, recalled, “At her house, she let me play in the backyard where we’d search for salamanders and if I was a good boy, she let me go to her candy drawer and then for a special treat, we’d go to feed the ducks and ride the train in Lake Merrit’s Fairyland.”
Caption: Helen gets one of her own home grown orchid corsages from granddaughter Kelly at one of her special parties.
Second grandchild, Kelly Matsuura, remembers of that time period going to the Presbyterian Church’s Senior Center craft meetings where Helen was always bustling about serving lunch or teaching. Another favorite memory was watching her make her famous Kee’s Koffee Kandy and rolling the very hot candy mixture in her hands which she boasted were like hands of steel. Both grandchildren remembered she loved to shop and hoard paper products like paper towels, wax paper, aluminum foil. When they helped clean her house one time, we all had a good laugh finding almost 100 boxes of jello in her cupboards to make her many layered multi-colored jello dessert she was known for.
Caption: The Bill and Helen Kee Family celebrate their 50th Anniversary in 1981 with six grandchildren.
Another grandson, Palmer Lam, remembered her home made Chinese tamale “joong” simmering in huge pots continually and that her dinners always had to be served at 6pm sharp. Favorite memory was her buying a week’s supply of cha siu sandwiches for his school lunch box and complaining when the cost was raised from 25 cents to 40 cents for the whole week. Her homemade fried chicken and chow fun were favorite Helen Kee dishes she would cook for him, and he remembers her favorite pastime was continually watering her overflowing cache of every variety of orchid plant imaginable in her Oakland backyard.
Caption: Christmas holiday with granddaughters Erika and Margot Lam, and daughters Cheryle and Gerrye.
Food seemed the favorite memory of Helen Kee’s grandchildren, as she, common with Chinese grandmothers, always wanted to make sure she had food available whenever they visited her. San Francisco granddaughter Erika Lam, CEO of a real estate home staging company “Awaken Designs”, remembered her grandmother’s favorite fruit was pomelo which she would meticulously slice and arrange on styrofoam trays and have ever present in the refrigerator for all to enjoy. Another of Erika’s fond memory was admiring her grandmother’s vanity counter laden with perfume and nail polish bottles and always seeing her well dressed with matching colored purse and size 3 shoes for her very tiny feet.
Caption: Baby Adam Lam is watching grandmother Helen during a family gathering.
Her youngest grandson Adam Lam was also her largest and he laughs remembering that when she asked him how many eggs he wanted for breakfast, he would say five, and without a moment’s hesitation, she prepared exactly that number which he devoured happily even when in elementary school. One night as a high school student driving her home from San Francisco, he got lost in an unsavory Emeryville neighborhood, so she calmed him by singing hymns to guide him home. Picturing her memory, Adam added, “Paw paw was always so well kept and classy, wearing the most beautiful purple clothing every time I saw her.”
When great grand children came to add another generation to Helen Kee’s life, everyone in the community would marvel at her being the liveliest young-in-spirit great grand mother of all.
Caption: A smiling great grandmother was Helen Kee surrounded by Justin and Todd Matsuura and Garrett Wong.
Now doesn’t that give you a clearer picture of who Helen Kee was when seen in the eyes of her grandchildren? From a daughter’s viewpoint, let me add that she was not only the smallest person but always the most fashionable lady wherever we went. She charmed everyone, men and women, winning their admiration for her beauty, humor and friendly manner. She loved to boast that up to midlife she was often asked for her ID by bartenders, but when queried for specifics about her age, she would never tell and demurely say “old enough to know better”.
Caption: Helen greets her three generations family of daughter Gerrye, grandchildren Mike and Kelly, and her 5 great grandchildren of the Wong and Matsuura families.
It wasn’t until she let us celebrate her 80th birthday with a party for her hundred friends, did she tell even me how old she was. However, from that birthday party on to her 90s, whomever she met, friend or stranger, with a twinkle in her eye, she would coyly say, “Bet you can’t guess how old I am”..and then promptly announce her age very proudly!
Helen Wong Kee lived to 98 years of age and will be lovingly remembered by all who crossed her path — the lady with the tiny feet who made an important footprint in the lives of all who knew her! Rest in Peace , mom. Happy Mothers Day to you and to all those in our communities today in 2020!
