WONG Gam Fook arrived in Vancouver, B.C. in 1920 at just six months old. He was accompanied by his mother (Lee Shee or Mrs. Wong Sue, 22), half-brother (Wong Gam Wah, 18), and sister (Wong Gan Ho, 10).

Wong Foon Sien was a spokesperson for the Chinese Canadian community in Vancouver, serving in influential positions with the Chinese Benevolent Association and the Wongs' Benevolent Association. He was instrumental in advocating for the granting of the franchise to Chinese Canadians in 1947 following their military service in World War II. On many occasions, he travelled to Ottawa to pursue the rights of Chinese Canadians, particularly urging the lifting of immigration restrictions towards reunification of family members following the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. He also served for a time on the Vancouver Consultative Committee on Redevelopment, and throughout his life, fought unflaggingly to end discrimination against not just Chinese Canadians, but all minority groups.

WONG Fong Kaw, known simply and affectionately as “Wong”, was born in 1890 in Guangzhou.

Wong left China and arrived in Canada in 1911, at the age of 21. He settled in in Nelson, BC where he worked and resided for 51 years. During this time, he made life-long friendships and became a well-known, well-respected and well-loved member of the community.

Wong worked as a gardener and houseboy for many prominent Nelson families including the Walley family, Rutherford family and Willis family of the Nelson North Shore. He worked for the latter for over 20 years. Such a great friendship flourished during this tenure that the Wong and Willis families would still be connected two generations later.

In later years, Wong became part owner of the former New Star Cafe, on Baker Street in downtown Nelson. He also worked as a cook at several other restaurants in town during the winter season.

During the summers, Wong cultivated a large garden along the waterfront of The CPR Flats, located behind Nelson’s historic railway station. His garden supplied local residents and businesses with a bounty of fresh vegetables. The CPR Flats is also where Wong built his family home. 

Wong returned to China once in the early 1930s, staying for two years. Over this time, he married ENG Shung Quai. Their daughter WONG Show Ha (also known as Susan Show Ha LOUIE after marriage) was born in 1932.

With the responsibility of supporting his new family, Wong returned to Canada shortly after the birth of his daughter. A separation of 18 years would follow. During these long, lonely years apart, Wong worked very hard and toiled lengthy, arduous hours, but always maintained his great sense of humour throughout. Wong eventually saved enough to send for his wife and daughter. The family was finally reunited when Shung Quai and Show Ha arrived in Nelson on Christmas eve in 1951.

For the next decade, Wong enjoyed and doted on his family, cherishing his time with them. He and his wife hosted a grand wedding for their daughter at the Hume Hotel on January 10, 1961, when she married Dean Wah LOUIE. Wong lived to see the birth of his first grandchild, whom he thoroughly adored. He named her Nancy.

Wong touched a good many of his Canadian friends’ lives with his kindness, generosity and humour. One Nelson old-timer recounted a distinct memory from his boyhood during the Great Depression. He remembers his mother crying in despair, without food in the house, contemplating how to feed her family. They heard a knock on the door; there stood Wong, delivering a basketful of his farm fresh vegetables!

Wong passed away on February 9, 1962. He is remembered fondly by his family and the many friends whose lives he touched.

WONG Dong Han (known in Canada as Gordon Wong) was the third brother of his family to immigrate to Canada. He was born in China in 1887 and arrived in 1919, paying the $500 head tax.

Gordon headed east to Nova Scotia to join his brothers. He worked at various establishments including the Savoy Café in Glace Bay. He worked as a waiter, dishwasher and cook. Unlike his brothers, he never returned to China and was the only one to marry in Canada.

There were very few Chinese women in 1930s Nova Scotia. Instead, Gordon travelled across the country to Victoria, B.C. where he arranged to find a Chinese wife through a marriage broker. In 1930, he married Dorothy Tso and together they had nine children.

Around 1939, Gordon worked at Wong‘s restaurant in Antigonish. In 1942, Gordon and his family adopted his brother Charles’ grandson, Ching Yue (b. December 28, 1940) who was living in China. Despite the family’s best efforts, larger events intervened. WWII and later the revolution and the installation of the Communist regime, prevented Ching Yue from coming to Canada. He never did make it out of China.

Gordon eventually owned his own restaurant, the Capital Café on 211 Provost Street in New Glasgow.

He died in 1965 and was buried in Antigonish.

WONG Dong Gee (Lee) (known in Canada as Jack Wong) was born in Namtoon, China in 1895.

He arrived in Canada in 1911 at age 16, sponsored by his cousin, WONG Sun. Initially, he worked and boarded in a laundry on Union Street in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

Jack attended school while working at the laundry, completing grade one. His status as a student for one year made him eligible for a refund of the $500 head tax.

In 1918, Jack and his cousin opened the Eric Café on Charlotte Street in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The cafe remained in operation until 1932.

Most Chinese migrants did not return to China until after they had been in Canada for at least 10 years. As luck would have it, Jack won the Chinese lottery in November 1921, and had enough money to make a return trip to China. While in China, he built a house, married, and started a family. He had a son who was named Kai Doai.

Jack’s family remained in China while he returned to Canada in order to earn money and support his new family. Chinese were permitted to take temporary leave of Canada for a maximum two years. Most men stayed a year and a half which was enough time to get married and sire a child.

Between 1928 and 1936, Jack worked in the Radio Café restaurant in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

He died in 1952 from cancer and is buried in Hardwood Hill cemetery in Sydney.

WONG Dhung Ying (known in Canada as Charles Wong) was the second member of his family to come to Canada. He was born in 1887 and arrived in 1916. He paid the $500 head tax and travelled to Nova Scotia where his eldest brother, Jack, was already established.

By 1923, Charles was living and working at Wong‘s Chinese Laundry at 390 George Street in Sydney. In 1943, Charles was working at the Union Laundry in Charlottetown, PEI.

In 1925, he returned to China to see his family, returning to Canada in 1927. Charles and his wife had one son, Kai Thien. Wife and son remained in China.

He died in 1962 and was buried in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

Dennis Edward WONG was born in Victoria, B.C. in the Spring of 1917, two months premature and weighing less than two pounds—a “miracle baby,” according to his daughter, Janice Mar Wong. He was the second child and the favoured first son of Rose and Joseph Wong, a Chinese family quick to adopt Western customs; his maternal grandfather was an early convert to the British Wesleyan Church.

Dennis grew up surrounded by a large and doting extended family, with dozens of cousins and indulgent aunts and uncles. His father ran a prosperous greenhouse business growing potted chrysanthemums and tomatoes. Dennis’ elder sister, Josie, noted they were one of the few Chinese families living outside of the perimeter of Victoria's Chinatown, a minor fact today, but significant in that era. Dennis’ father was active in the fight against segregation in Victoria schools, which culminated in the Chinese student boycott protests of 1922.

In the 1930s, when Dennis was a teenager, on a cold winter night, the greenhouse attendant left the nursery heaters unattended, and Dennis’s family awoke to a greenhouse of frozen plants; their business never recovered. Amidst the Great Depression and with many bills to pay, Dennis left school and embarked on a series of food-related apprenticeships to help his family, including as a cook on the ferries that crossed the Georgia Strait, and as a bus boy at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

Dennis was working as a sous-chef at Poodle Dog restaurant when he met his future wife, Mary, at the Leap Year Dance held in Victoria's Chinatown on New Years’ Eve in 1940. They were immediately smitten with one another. Dennis and Mary spent the next 59 years together, and raised four children.

After his apprenticeships, Dennis went on to open his own restaurants, in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, serving as the proprietor of the Wings and Lotus restaurants for 35 years. There, he prepared what he knew and loved best: his beloved southern Chinese village-style cuisine, modified for a tentative western palate. He introduced several generations of Canadian diners to staple Chinese fare, cooking dishes such as fried rice, egg foo yung, chicken chow mein, and sweet and sour spareribs.

Among his family and friends, Dennis was especially known for his love of food and cooking. “If I were asked to describe my father in a single sentence, I would say he was quick, feisty, funny, sentimental, generous, egalitarian, and a great cook,” said his daughter, Janice. “In the kitchen—wherever that kitchen might be—he was calm and fluid: he made everything seem effortless.”

“When I was very young, my father pointed out a peacock in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. I was startled to hear him musing whether or not the glorious bird would be good to eat. I later grew to realize that my dad loved food; he loved to cook and he loved to eat. To him, all the world was a gastronomic temptation,” recalled Janice, looking back on her childhood memories of her father.

In 1999, after a long and slow decline, Dennis passed away, surrounded by his family.

WONG Dang Kee was born in China in 1884. In 1901, when he was 17, he married Yee Mei Ngu and they had a daughter, born in 1903, whom they named Kim.

Dang Kee immigrated to Canada when Kim was three months old, leaving behind his young family; he would never see his daughter again. He arrived in Victoria, B.C., on December 24, 1903.

Dang Kee settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and found employment working at a hand laundry business. He worked his way up to become a co-owner of the business, and eventually bought out others to become the sole owner. Though he experienced discrimination throughout his life in Canada, he never dwelled on these.

He brought his wife, Yee Mei Ngu, to join him in Canada in 1921; the couple was finally reunited after almost two decades apart. Their daughter, Kim, had by then married in China and remained with her new family. Dang Kee and his wife would have five more children together, all born in Canada.

In 1930, Dang Kee sold the laundry business and moved to the family to Springhill, Nova Scotia. He became a restauranteur, opening the Glory Cafe. Ten years later, the family moved once again to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and opened the Radio Cafe, which became the family business.

Dang Kee was a proud, progressive father and a strong believer in the importance of education for his children. All of his Canadian-born children completed post-secondary education: two daughters graduated from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, another attended the Boston Institute of Medical Technology, his youngest daughter studied nursing at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and his son attended Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

His daughter, Lily, recalled, “Dang Kee was a proud family man. In the face of adversity, he persevered with his subtle sense of humour, tolerance, hope, and dedication to hard work to enable the next generation to have a rich and fulfilling life for which all his children were grateful.”

Dang Kee passed away in 1959.

WONG On Lee (known in Canada as Dan) was born on April 12, 1904 in a small village in [台山 Toisan / Taishan] county, in China’s Guangdong province. Dan arrived in Canada in June 1922, traveling to Vancouver on the Empress of Asia steamship, and paid the $500 head tax required for Chinese entry to the country.

Dan was 18 years old but was recorded as 15 years of age. He arrived with a 13-year-old “paper” brother. Travelling together meant a degree of security for the youth and allowed two families to benefit from having sons in Canada.

Dan headed to the Brooks, Alberta area to work with an uncle who cooked in a CPR work camp. From there, Dan worked in restaurants in Tompkins, Saskatchewan and The Pas, Manitoba. In 1927, he settled in the southeastern Alberta farming hamlet of Queenstown, where he opened a café.

Dan became a very proficient cook. A long-time friend from Queenstown told the family that Dan had perfected his skill for making apple pies and pancakes during his café years. He said Dan often sold his pies while enjoying his love of community baseball in Queenstown. Dan eventually converted his café into a general store.

In 1933, Dan returned to China and wed Mah See. The long years of the Chinese Exclusion Act were in effect, so Dan had to return to Queenstown on his own. When he left China, Mah See was pregnant with their first child. She remained in China, living with Dan’s mother and extended family. When Dan returned for Canada, he had no idea how long it would be before they could be reunited. Shortly after his return to Canada, the couple's first son, Gene, was born.

Through the years, Dan continued to operate his well-stocked general store and became a fixture in the Queenstown community. After WWII, the Chinese revolution, and repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1947, Mah See and Gene were able join Dan in Canada in the fall of 1949. After being on his own since the 1930s, Dan was now able to be in the company of his wife and and finally meet his son, now 15 years old. Between 1951 and 1955, Dan and Mah See had four more children: Lily, Ken, Art and Fred.

In Queenstown, as with other farming communities, a general store was important and relied upon for food and necessities. During hard times when money was tight, Dan often allowed customers to purchase on credit. There were times when he would be reimbursed months or years later, and sometimes not at all.

As the years passed, Queenstown’s population, along with its economic and business activity, declined. By 1960, approximately 30 people remained in the hamlet. Dan decided that a move to the Calgary area would be better for the family. Dan’s oldest son, Gene, had already settled in Calgary with his wife, after originally moving to the city for post-secondary education.

Dan and Gene decided to purchase a corner store (Parkway Store) in Calgary in 1961. Gene operated the store while a second story was added to the building to include family apartments. By November 1963, the renovations were complete, and Dan and the rest of the Wong family left Queenstown and moved to Calgary.

The Calgary store was typically open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, 363 days a year and only closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Dan kept the store stocked with groceries and had a wide variety of other goods including clothes, houseware, toys and hardware. It was truly a family operation with everyone spending time working in the store.

Operating a corner store occasionally had its dramatic moments. One Saturday evening in November 1989, a teenager attempted to rob the store. Dan, by then 85-years-old, used a hockey stick he kept behind the counter to fight off the would-be robber who pulled out a knife. Dan didn’t realize he’d been injured until he took off his shirt to reveal a blood-stained undershirt. Dan was taken to hospital to treat the wound. Despite the injury, Dan opened the store as usual on Sunday morning. On Monday morning, the Calgary Herald headline of the incident read “Blade no match for 85-year-old”.

Dan’s wife, Mah See, passed away in 1993 after suffering from poor health for a number of years. Though Dan’s family encouraged him to retire, he continued to run the store. Keeping busy and his love for interaction with his regular customers kept him going. In the latter years, when the store was not as busy as it once was, you would often find Dan chatting and laughing with a customer, with a hockey game on the store’s TV in the background.

By the time Dan moved to Calgary in 1963, he had already worked in and operated small businesses for 41 years in Canada. Dan would go on to operate the Calgary store for another 34 years. In 1997, at the age of 93, Dan suffered a debilitating stroke which left him in an extended care home. He passed away in 2000.

Dan was always admired for his hard work and determination and remembered for his great cooking, healthy appetite and his hearty laugh. He had a wonderful laugh that would come from his belly and his entire body would shake. The old-timers in Calgary’s Chinese community referred to Dan by the nickname “Happy”.

Around 1995, Dan learned that his older brother’s family in the home village had a telephone. He hadn’t spoken to his brother since his visit to China in 1933. He called the family but because his brother was disabled and the family needed to arrange to move him to the phone, Dan wasn’t able to speak to him on this call. He promised to phone again a few months later on Chinese New Year’s. When Dan called, he learned that his brother had recently passed away. This was a reminder of the sadness and disappointments that Dad faced in his life, but also his resilience.

Dan loved to wear Viyella plaid shirts in the winter. In his later years, instead of changing shirts for special occasions, he would put a tie on his plaid shirt. When his son Fred pointed out that the tie didn’t match with his shirt, he simply responded “At my age, I don’t have to match”.

WONG Chung Lum arrived in Victoria, B.C. on April 4, 1913 having sailed on the Canada Maru. He entered the country as a 20-year-old labourer hailing from the village of Nam Hing in the [台山 Toisan / Taishan] county of the Guangdong province of China. Prior to 1914, the county was known as 新寧 Sunning / Xinning.

WONG Chou Heung was the second wife of businessman WONG Toy. She was born in China in 1901 as LEONG Chou Heung. She arrived in Canada in 1916, marrying Toy at the young age of 15. Since her husband was a merchant, Chou Heung was admitted without paying the head tax.

When Chou Heung first came to Canada she lived in Vancouver. Then in 1934, she moved with her children to Alert Bay to join her husband Toy and his first wife and family.

Chou Heung had four sons and three daughters. Two of her sons, Frank and Bing, joined the Canadian Army in WWII. After the war, she moved back to Vancouver with her children and ran a pawn shop in Chinatown.

She passed away on November 22, 1951.

WONG Bin Jung arrived in Vancouver, B.C. in 1919.

Benjamin WONG was born in Victoria, B.C. as WONG Wah Bain on May 3, 1907. He was the eldest of two brothers. His father, WONG Wing Fong, was born in [廣東 Guangdong] province in China and immigrated to Canada in 1889, where he worked as a grocery merchant in Victoria. Subsequently, he moved to Vancouver and started a business sewing uniforms on contract. He worked from home with his commercial sewing machines. Ben’s mother, Wong Yuen, born YUEN Chai Dan in Victoria in 1890, helped support her husband’s tailoring business.

The family moved to Vancouver in 1914, when Ben was 7, and settled on Keefer Street. In Vancouver, he attended elementary school at the Strathcona School. His experience at school was marked by the racism he faced, as the white Anglo-Saxon kids would frequently bully their Chinese and Jewish schoolmates; in response, the Jewish and Chinese kids, including Ben, banded together to avoid harassment. After elementary school, Ben had to work to support his mother and his younger brother’s education; he was never able to attend high school.

Ben initially worked as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Marble Arch Hotel near the CPR railway station. He also acted as a bodyguard, along with a friend, George Moy, for the Chinese Freemason Leader during meetings in Chinatown, throughout his twenties.

Ben met his future wife when he was 24. While working at the hotel, he came to the aid of Pearl Goon, a fellow Chinese Canadian who was being harassed on a streetcar. Pearl and Ben soon began a relationship, and married on October 17, 1931 at the Chinese United Church. Ben and Pearl had four children: Rod (b. 1932), Carole (b. 1936), and twins Roberta and Barbara (b. 1937).

During the Great Depression, Ben was laid off from his job as a bellhop, but later found work at the fish cannery to support his growing family. At the time, employment discrimination towards the Chinese was common, which made it additionally hard for him to find work. However, during WWII, white young men were drafted into the Canadian army, which left a shortage of white workers. The shipyards began to hire Chinese workers as replacements for jobs that had previously been off-limits to Asians; Ben found work at the Burrard Dry Dock Shipyard as a layout man, setting up plans from a blueprint and laying out the metal parts that needed welding.

In his free time, Ben was a member of the Chinese Hill Billies Band, which practiced regularly at his house on 439 Heatley Avenue in Vancouver. They called the house “Club 439,” as the house was a gathering spot for their single friends to hang out, drink, and dance.

Ben Wong passed away on March 23, 1985.

WONG Bark Ging was the oldest son in his family and because of this, was selected to be sent to Canada. He arrived in 1921, at the age of 13, exempt from paying the head tax as sponsored by a merchant family.

By 1924, he had made his way to Alberta and found work as a cook, quite possibly working in mining camps.

Over the course of his life, Ging worked as both a labourer and a cook, but his main occupation was that of a market gardener.

In 1930, he returned to China to marry Young See, a marriage that had been arranged for him. With the Chinese Exclusion Act in effect, he had to leave his wife behind in China when he returned to work in Canada.

After the repeal of the Act, and in anticipation of sponsoring his wife to Canada, Ging applied for and received his Certificate of Canadian Citizenship on January 17, 1949.

The couple would finally reunite in Canada in 1949. However, they were forced to leave behind their adopted son. This boy was in fact Ging’s nephew whom they had adopted earlier in the 1940s. It would take Ging another two years before he could get his adopted son into Canada.

Eventually, Ging and his wife would settle in Edmonton, Alberta and would have four children.

Ging died in Edmonton on November 27, 1988.

WONG Ng Chee (known in Canada as Archie Wong) arrived in Vancouver on July 30, 1923, a few weeks after the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act was in force. The Act allowed those already in transit to enter Canada.

Archie was 12 years old. He lived with his father and four of his uncles who intended to open an import-export business together.

For a few years, Archie attended Strathcona Public School in Vancouver. But when he was a young adult his father died, and that led him to move to Toronto.

In Toronto, Archive worked as a grocer, then a restaurateur, and finally as a produce clerk.

He also loved to gamble. On Sundays, he would go to Chinatown with 2 or 3 kids in tow (all under the age of 7). He would set up the children at a table in a restaurant and buy each of them a bottle of the soft drink Orange Crush and a straw. He would then slip into the back room and the children would hear loud voices and excitement from behind the door.

In 1985, Archie visited his village in China for the first time in about 50 years. He didn't recognize the drive to the village; when he left for Canada, no roads had been built yet. Archie was delighted to see the huge banyan tree that he climbed on and played under as a boy. However, he was deeply saddened by the sight of his family’s original house; abandoned and neglected. That memory depressed him for some time upon his return to Canada.

Archie and his Canadian-born wife Marjorie had six children: Kathy, David, Frances, Carol, Richard, and Michael.

He passed away in Toronto on June 8, 1993.

Born WONG Yim Sun, Allan Sunn WONG was a New Year’s baby; he entered this world on January 1, 1909 in Victoria.

At some point during his childhood, his family moved to Vancouver where they owned a house on Thurlow Street, right behind St. Paul’s Hospital, and ran a grocery store nearby called Honest Way.

When WWII erupted, many young Chinese Canadian men and women tried to enlist in an effort to show their loyalty to Canada and help win the vote for Chinese. The family understands that Allan was not accepted for service because he had flat feet.

Allan married Margaret Mah who was originally from Winnipeg. They would have four children and raise their family in Vancouver and Kimberley.

Allan supported the family by working in the family grocery business. Later, working alongside his wife, he managed a restaurant, then owned and operated a cafe. Running these businesses consumed most of his time and energy.

However, in the moments when he did relax, his daughter Brenda Wong, recalls that Allan “could play the piano even though he had no training and couldn't read music. He also loved to drive, smoke cigars and pipes, and enjoy a glass of Dubonnet now and then.”

Allan died in 1985. He was 76 years old.

Wong Shee is believed to have been born in Northern China; family accounts relay that some of her first memories were of snow. At a young age, she was sold to human traffickers to be what our family referred to as a "child slave", something believed to be close to an indentured servant.

In her youth, she was moved to the southern Guangdong province where she entered into some sort of contract to be a man's "colonial wife" in Vancouver. She is recorded as being born in 1887, but her family believes that she or her traffickers reported her to be older to gain entry into Canada.

She arrived in Victoria in 1909, then was moved to Vancouver to meet her new "husband", Low Wing. It is said that when she got to Vancouver, she realized she would not be "free" as she had been promised, and so Wong Shee fled to the community of Ladner.

It is not known how long she was in Ladner, but it is known that she was "recaptured" and forced to marry Low Wing. Not much is known about her husband. In family stories, he is said to be a butler for a Member of Parliament, but it is recorded that he worked as a cook.

During their "marriage", Low Wing moved Wong Shee across the country multiple times to both Toronto and Ottawa. During these moves, Wong Shee was forced to leave her daughters in the care of an orphanage in Victoria, while she was allowed to bring her sons with her. It is said that for work, Wong Shee played the "Chinese piano" in brothels across the different Chinatowns, though it is believed that her husband forced her to be a sex worker and/or madam in the same establishments she played.

Wong Shee had eight children in total; it is not known if her husband fathered them all, as many of her children reported to have never met their biological father. Her first child, Richard, was sold to a rich family in Victoria, though kept in touch with his biological family for many years. Four of her other children died in their late teens/early twenties of tuberculosis.

In her older age, she lived with her daughter, Lilian, and helped raise Lilian’s first child, Robert.

Later on, when Lilian married her husband, Gordon SAM, Wong Shee helped raise their first two children, Richard and Georgina.

Wong Shee passed away in 1958 of a stroke, leaving behind her large family.

Wong Shee was born in China on September 1, 1895. She and LEE King married in China around 1911.

LEE King returned to Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1913 and again in 1915, this time with Wong Shee. In Canada, she was known as the wife of King Lee (Mrs. King Lee) and adopted the anglicized name of Lily. She was one of the first Chinese women to live in the Windsor-Detroit area.

Over the years, the couple would own a number of restaurants and finally a tavern with a hotel. They would have six Canadian-born children: Alfred (b. 1916), Peter (b. 1919), Edward (b. 1921), Ben (b. 1924), May (b. 1926) and Jimmy (b. 1929).

Three of their sons – Peter, Edward and Ben – would enlist in Canada’s war effort during WWII. The eldest, Alfred, remained at home to take care of the family business.

When the war ended, sons Peter, Ben and Jimmy took over the business. Alfred passed away in Boston in 1956. Edward opened Edgewater Marine in 1959.

When LEE King passed away in 1946, Lily kept the family together. Her sons would have dinner with their mother during the weekday. The grandchildren would have lunch with her every Sunday after church.

As one of her granddaughters, Linda Lee-Egan recalls “My sister and I and two cousins remember spending a week during the summers with my grandmother. We also remember going to the market with her every Saturday.”

Lily passed away in 1972.

Wong Shee, wife of GOON Ling Dang, was born of the Wong clan sometime in June 1891 in a small hamlet in [新寧 Sunning / Xinning]. The area would later be known as Toisan/Taishan.

Not much is known about her youth, but she was previously married, giving birth to her first son, CHIN Chuck Wing, in 1911, becoming widowed at a young age. After many years, at the age of 30, she embarked on the steamer, the Empress of Russia, in 1922 for a new husband and a new life. She left her son, Chuck Wing, behind in China.

Her new husband, GOON Ling Dang, was a prominent merchant, contractor, and cannery owner. He also ran a general store between Canton and Shanghai Alley called Jun Kee Co. His first marriage had been to Jennie Wah Chong (1872-1921) who was one of the first Chinese to attend school in Vancouver. Jennie’s parents owned and operated Wah Chong Washing & Ironing; a portrait of the family in front of the business (with Jennie on the far left) is in the photograph collection of the City of Vancouver Archives, included to help fill gaps in the visual record of the city.

Unbeknownst to Wong Shee, Ling Dang was 33 years her senior. According to numerous relatives, “apparently she 'wanted to run' when she saw how old he was.” Her husband had two children, Tyson and Pearl, from his previous marriage. She would bare him 5 more children: Emily (b. 1923), Lily (b. 1924), Rose (b. 1926), Mary (b. 1927), and Susie (b. 1929). Concurrently, Wong Shee supported the growing family, holding various jobs through the years. She worked at a fish cannery, sack factory, Chinese sausage factory, and on a farm, where she hand-picked peas, beans and tomatoes.

In 1937, the elderly Mr. Goon remarked to The Vancouver Sun on the great many of his friends and neighbours who had now passed away or departed. By 1940, he was by some accounts one of the oldest Chinese-born residents of Vancouver. In 1946, the family had saved enough money to move from Canton Alley to a home on 746 East Pender Street in Strathcona because the Canton Alley/Shanghai Alley land was being expropriated by the city, so all residents had to move. Soon after, in 1952, Wong Shee was widowed once more.

With the end of Chinese Exclusion in 1947, Wong Shee at last was able to sponsor her son, Chuck Wing, to come to Canada, though their reunion was cut short, with Chuck Wing passing away in 1959. Wong Shee took comfort and pride in her garden, growing squash, green beans, and snow peas.

After she retired, when the Chau Luen Tower was built in 1973, Wong Shee was among the first to select a suite on account of her husband; he was a former Vice-President of the Chinese Empire Reform Association. Her grandchildren remember her for her nian gao (Chinese New Year cake), homemade clothes, and elaborately hand-embroidered slippers with flowers and lace. “When I think of what a grandma looks like, I picture my grandmother in her round spectacles, white wavy hair, thick knee high stockings, long skirt, knitted sweaters, and always had a smile for her grandkids!” In her old age, she still had strong hands, smashing peanut shells and cockroaches alike! After moving to the apartment, she still continued to garden, bussing to a different daughter’s home on weekdays to tend the plots and beds. Wong Shee died in 1977, much beloved by her children and grandchildren.

The Women's Research Centre (WRC) was founded in 1973 and emerged out of the BC Women's Studies Association. The Women's Research Centre was a feminist organization involved with research intended to promote action to change women's situations. The Centre maintained links with other women's organizations across Canada and responded to requests from women's groups and institutions regarding the project and organizational development, government and institutional responses to women's issues, and public and professional education. The objective of the Women's Research Centre was to provide individual women and community-based women's groups with the information, analyses, and/or skills they needed in order to take action on issues of concern to them. The research results were used in workshops, seminars, and consultations and published in various pamphlets, reports, and books which were later distributed to women's groups and other interested organizations. The Women's Research Centre was a registered, non-profit society with an annually elected board of directors and a policy collective composed of ten members of the Centre, who met monthly to make decisions on the overall policy and direction of the Centre and its various projects. In addition, an advisory committee, composed of representatives from across Canada, met once a year to provide information and to review the Centre's plan from a national perspective. The Centre's work was carried out by research committees composed of volunteers. The volunteers were made up of women who were both interested in and had the ability to contribute to a particular research area. At least one member of the policy collective sat on each research committee. The Women's Research Centre was funded by an operations grant from the Secretary of State Women's Program. In addition, the Centre also received grants or contracts from federal, provincial, and municipal departments and agencies and funding from private foundations for specific research projects. The Women's Research Centre disbanded in 2000.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (W.I.L.P.F.)was founded in 1915 at The Hague by women active in the suffrage movements in Europe and America who wished to end the First World War and to insure that no further wars occurred. The League began its work in Canada in 1920 in Vancouver, led by Dorothy Steeves and Laura Jamieson, with Lucy Woodsworth, Agnes McPhail and Violet McNaughton among its members. The League's work has been to promote peace education and to campaign for disarmament and anti-militarism. During World War II it opposed the introduction of military cadet training in schools and it has investigated textbooks which glorified war. In 2001, the Vancouver branch joined with the Toronto branch to start a Canadian section.

In 1998 the Women's History Network of British Columbia applied to the BC Heritage Trust for funding to support an oral history project to document the career of Margaret Ormsby. The Women's History Network is a non-profit society established in 1995 to "enhance interest and encourage activity in women's history across British Columbia." Membership consists of educational institutions, local history groups, museum and archives representatives, women's organizations and other interested persons and groups. The Ormsby project sought to clarify her contribution to the historiography of the province, her role as educator and teacher, and her personality and her relationship to other people. With the support of Heritage Trust, the WHN engaged the services of Ruth Sandwell, who prepared interview questions, conducted the interviews and developed a comprehensive subject index to the interviews.

The American National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed in Cleveland, History: Ohio in 1874 . The Canadian branch of the organization was established in Ontario in 1875 and the World WCTU in 1883. The organization enjoyed some success in North America with the passage of Prohibition laws in 1918. In Canada there were fewer than 4,000 members in 1985.

The "Women and Sustainable Development: Canadian Perspectives" conference was initially proposed in 1992 and was held at UBC in May 1994. A Steering Committee of grass-roots activists planned it, researchers, public policy practitioners, and leaders of non-governmental organizations from the feminist, environment, development, and peace communities. It was led and chaired by Ann Dale, then Senior Associate at SDRI. The conference produced over 100 policy recommendations leading to the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Born in England, F.H. Wollaston was a prospector resident in Victoria, B.C. Together with his partner, C.H. Arundel, Wollaston conducted mining exploration in southern British Columbia and the Nootka region of northern Vancouver Island between 1897 and 1899. They staked numerous claims, the most productive of which was the Nickel Plate Mine at Hedley, B.C. Wollaston later began a holly and bulb farm in Victoria.

Wolgemut was a woodcut artist.