John Hobart McLean Andrews was born in Kamloops in 1926, where he attended High School. He received a BA in Physics and MA from UBC. It was at UBC where he met his wife, Dorie. He taught at the high school in Salmon Arm and Squamish. Andrews later studied for his Ph.D. in Education Administration at the University of Chicago. He became a Professor of Education Administration at the University of Alberta from 1958-1965. Before becoming Dean of Education at UBC, he was Assistant Director of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education. In 1972 he won the Canadian Council for Research & Education Award. He was Dean of Education at UBC from 1973-1980, succeeding Neville Scarfe.

The T-Cup Game at UBC was an annual football game between the School of Nursing and the School of Home Economics. Each year, the Home Ec Home Workers Vs the Nurses Red Shirts donated the money raised to charity. The halftime show also traditionally involved a chariot race between the engineers and the aggies (agriculture students). Which led to frequent injuries. A letter to The Ubyssey in 1998 traces the origins of the T-Cup Game to the early 1950s, and it appears to have been a consistent feature of student life until the early 2000s. The nursing program began at UBC in 1919 but did not become the School of Nursing until 1951. The Department of Home Economics was established in 1949 and became a School in 1951. In 1984 the School of Home Economics was consolidated with the School of Family and Nutritional Sciences.

The Department of Modern Languages at UBC was a department at UBC from the university's founding. The first head of the department was H. Ashton who worked alongside Henri Chodat and Isabel MacInnes. Three graduates joined the department in 1920, including Margaret Ross, Pauline Gintzburger and Marjorie Peck. In 1933, Ashton resigned his position and it was filled by D. O. Evans.

The proposal to form the Department of Linguistics within the Faculty of Arts at UBC was approved in 1967. It was to be given high priority for funding in the 1968-69 budget. However, it was 1969 before the first head of the department, Professor John T. Waterman, previously head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Southern California, was appointed, but he resigned from the position before arriving at UBC. It was 1971 when Professor Michael A.K. Hailiday, an expert in Chinese language and linguistics, was appointed. Professor Hailiday was head of General Linguistics at University College London. Before the establishment of the department, UBC offered a major in linguistics through the Department of Classics.

Jean Patricia Webber (nee Browne) was born on July 10, 1919 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and received her public school education in Nelson, British Columbia. She completed her teaching training in 1938 at the Provincial Normal School in Victoria where she met her future husband, Bernard George Webber. Jean commenced her career thereafter, teaching in rural, one-room schools. She and Bernard wed in 1941.

Bernard was elected to the B.C. Legislature from 1941 to 1945 as a member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), representing the constituency of Similkameen. Over this period, Jean ran his constituency and campaign office while maintaining the couple’s home and growing family. Jean made key contributions on behalf of the CCF. As a delegate to the 1943 convention of the CCF in B.C., she spoke prominently in support of the CCF’s motion to extend the franchise to Canadians of Asian heritage. Her drafting of the CCF Indigenous policy in 1945 advocated granting the franchise to persons of Indian status and recognizing Indigenous institutions of government.

Jean resumed her studies at UBC in 1952 while raising five children and teaching part-time. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and English in 1957, and her Master of Arts degree in English in 1968. Her responsibilities as a wife and mother limited her career as she couldn’t teach full-time and frequently needed to relocate for her husband’s career. When Jean retired in 1975, she had taught at every grade in the public school system and first year college.

Jean was an active volunteer with the community arts councils in Vernon, Kitimat and Osoyoos, and was first elected president of the Okanagan Mainline Community Arts Council. She contributed to the development of arts policy in the area of access to the arts, representing the region at national and provincial arts conferences. Jean wrote and published extensively on local history and Indigenous local history, including as Editor of Okanagan History: Report of the Okanagan Historical Society from 1982-1988 and as Editor of Okanagan Sources that brought together contemporary Indigenous writers.

Jean died on April 17, 2012 in Kelowna, British Columbia.

LIM Wong was born on January 15, 1919, in Cumberland’s Chinatown, where he was raised with eight other siblings born to his mother, Lim Chin Shee, and his father, Lim Lip Pun. His given name was Wong as listed on his birth certificate. His chosen English name was Wilbert. He had an older brother, Ki Shun (aka Kelly), who was adopted by Lip Lip Pun and his first wife. His Canadian siblings were Chon (aka Jack, b. 1910), Yee (aka Una, b. 1912), Hing (aka Harold, b. 1914), Ho (aka Margaret, b. 1915), Kwai (aka Dorothy, b. 1917), Hung (aka Helen, b. 1920), Que (aka Elsie, b. 1922), and Yuen (aka Lorna, b. 1923).

Wilbert’s father paid the $50 head tax upon arrival in Victoria in 1890 as a laundryman from San Francisco. By 1910, Lim Lip Pun was a merchant, and had a wife, Lim Chin Shee, and son, Ki Shun, in Canada. Lim Lip Pun operated the firm of Yee Yuen in Cumberland’s Chinatown.

Wilbert’s father died in Chinatown on April 27, 1924. Four years later, the family returned to their ancestral village, sailing on August 25, 1928 for Lum Ok Dei, Guanghai Township, 台山 Toisan / Taishan county, 廣東 Guangdong province, China.

Wilbert completed the equivalent of high school there, then taught kindergarten with his sister, Helen, in Lum Ok Dei village.

He returned to Vancouver in 1937 and worked at The Only Sea Foods (20 East Hastings Street) and the Sylvia Hotel.

During the war, he worked at the Ocean Falls pulp mill. By the late 1940s, Wilbert, his brother Harold, his brother-in-law Norman Young, and a few silent partners, owned and operated the WK Gardens (127 East Pender St), which was known for its dining and dancing to its non-Chinese clientele; however, to the Chinese community, it was the place to host and attend banquets to celebrate life events. The rich and famous also frequented the WK. He remained at the WK until it was sold in 1969.

Another iteration of WK Gardens eventually opened at 173 East Pender St (ca. 1976); besides banquets, it was known for serving a wide variety of dim sum items. In between the two WKs, Wilbert operated Tai Pan Restaurant (3005 Granville St, early 1970s), then worked for Faye and Dean Leung at Top of the Mandarin (611 Main St, mid-1970s). As a known entity among the Chinatown restaurants, he was often called “Boss.”

Though he regularly worked the front end of the restaurant, he knew how to prepare everything that was offered in the restaurants he operated. He understood the art of Chinese dining and was an artist in his own right (calligraphy, three-dimensional relief art, bonsai).

On February 27, 1952, Wilbert married Lillian Fong Yee Chan. They had two daughters, Wil (Wilberta) Marilyn and Imogene Letitia. Their first home was in Vancouver at 2586 East 4th Avenue, then in Burnaby at 4608 Brentlawn Drive.

After separating from Lillian, Wilbert returned to Vancouver to live at the Harry Lin Chin Golden Age Court until his death. Close to Chinatown, he was a regular at New Town Bakery where he met with his peers every morning to reminisce of the past.

Wilbert was a member of the Lim Sai Hor (Kow Mock) Association (531 Carrall St), a life member of the Chinese Cultural Centre (555 Columbia St), as well as a founding member of the Guang Hai Society.

Wilbert died on November 4, 1998, at St Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, from complications of pneumonia.

CHAN Dong-you arrived at age 17 in Vancouver on January 10, 1890 aboard the S.S. Parthia. She came from a poor family in [番禺 Punyu / Panyu] county (Luk Bo See village). As such, she spoke Cantonese.

Her husband-to-be’s brother had arranged her marriage to 39-year-old HO Chong 何祥, a merchant tailor from [恩平Yinping / Enping] county, who had reached British Columbia working his way up the west coast of the United States. By 1890, Ho Chong was in Kamloops, manufacturing garments for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Dong-you gave birth to their first children in the region.

Over the harsh winters, one child would die after being put too close to the stove, while another was smothered by heavy blankets. When the family travelled by wagon to New Westminster, another child died and was buried by the road; Dong-you vowed to go back and recover the body. Later, another child died of convulsions.

Her five children who survived to adulthood were Samuel, Lillian, Nellie, Winnifred and Ruth, all born in Vancouver. Lillian was the eldest of the daughters. She recalled her mother often going to visit women friends in Victoria on the ferry, and in New Westminster on the interurban tram.

Dong-you and the children worked in the family business, a firm called Hing Kee, at 31 Dupont Street. Part of its work involved making denim goods for Spencer’s department store. Hing Kee employed ten male seamsters, but all handwork (hemming, feather-stitching, and button-holing) was done by Dong-you and the children. They also made Chinese butterfly and pig-snout buttons.

In 1908, Ho Chong died while on a trip to China. Dong-you decided against taking the family there for fear that Ho Chong’s brothers would sell her daughters. Instead, she tried to run the merchant tailor firm. Her daughter Lillian went to ask another Chinatown firm for piecework, but got a snarl: “Why give you anything? You poor beggars will take our garments and go sell them!”

The firm failed, and Dong-you removed her children from school to work and support the family. The school principal came and threatened her, but to no avail. She was forced to send two daughters (Lillian and Ruth) to the Chinese Girls’ Rescue Home (later renamed the Oriental Home and School) in Victoria as her boarding house allowed only two children.

Lillian recalled her mother always carefully counted the number of diners before setting places at the dinner table. An extra setting, she feared, would invite evil to join them. Dong-you cited many proverbs in daily life, including:

Each grain of rice is precious; to put it on the table takes much work.
Going out, there’s no June. 出門無六月. [Always plan for bad weather.]
When visiting family stores, never sit near the money box.
If you walk in a group, always take the middle position in the line.

Of Dong-you’s offspring: Winnifred studied to be a mid-wife and married Raymond Ing, a restauranteur in Chicago. She later took her two teenaged children to China for schooling but fled the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. Ruth, a nurse, went to China to work but died there. At university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Samuel became an electrical engineer. He also worked in China but later settled in Toronto. Nellie went to the Sprott Shaw secretarial school.

Chan Dong-you died in 1946 in Vancouver at age 73.

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.

Lailey LOW was born LOW Yon Hon on December 20, 1917 at 1419 East Hastings Street in Vancouver. She was the eldest of four children of LOW Mutt and his wife LEE Shui. By 1924, the family was living outside of Chinatown, at 748 Davie Street.

She passed away on July 26, 1928 at the age of 10. Her death certificate listed her name as Lailey Low.

MAH Quong Chin, also known as MAH Hoy Seng, was born in September 1908 in [廣東 Guangdong] province. He would be known as Gene Mah in Canada.

He arrived in Canada in 1923, and settled in Edmonton, where he learned to speak and write English. He worked as a cook and a waiter in various restaurants around Alberta.

He returned to China in 1926, and married JONG Siu Oy in an arranged marriage. The couple had two daughters: Lun Un (b. 1927), and Lun Fee (b. 1930). A few years later, facing the likelihood of never being allowed to re-enter Canada since he was not yet a Canadian citizen, Gene had to return to Canada alone.

In 1950, the Canadian government permitted Gene’s wife to join him in Canada, while his two daughters had married and remained in China. The reunited couple settled in Three Hills and then Drumheller, where Gene co-owned a menswear store—Joffre Men’s Wear. The couple had three more children in Canada: Ellen/Siu Lun (b. 1951), Betty/Bet Lun (b. 1954), and Tommy/Fui Tum (b. 1954).

After selling the menswear store, Gene opened his own restaurant—the Dallas Café. It was known for serving excellent coffee, and for its joint Western and Chinese Canadian menu. He hired white waitresses, while in the kitchen, he employed Chinese cooks, one full-time English dishwasher, and a part-time Ukrainian dishwasher.

The restaurant closed twice a year. On Christmas Day and New Years’ Day, Gene’s cooks prepared an authentic multi-course Chinese dinner feast for the restaurant’s staff and their extended families. He also invited the elderly Chinese men who lived in a nearby bachelors’ apartment.

The Mah family was one of the first Chinese families in Drumheller with Canadian-born children. As they exclusively spoke the [台山 Toisan / Taishan] dialect at home, the two younger children did not learn English until they attended school. Gene encouraged his children to integrate into white Canadian society by joining school activities, participating in sports, attending church, and babysitting for other families. Their Canadian-born children were honours students throughout their school years, as Gene and his wife encouraged their children to focus on schoolwork to transcend the limited opportunities they were afforded as first-generation Chinese immigrants.

Gene was also involved in various other business endeavours. He owned and rented out three houses, and was also a member of the Chinese Freemasons. His family recalled, “Gene carried himself with quiet, confident dignity. Known as a hard-working, successful entrepreneur, he was treated with respect by other Drumheller businessmen.”

In 1963, Gene and Siu Oy’s daughter, Lun Fee, immigrated from China with her two sons to join her husband who had settled in California. Five years later, she visited Drumheller, reunited with her parents, and met her younger siblings for the first time.

Gene and his wife retired from the restaurant in 1969 and moved to Calgary. Siu Oy passed away in 1973, while Gene passed away on October 31, 1974. They never reunited with their eldest daughter; Lun Un immigrated from China to Calgary in 1975.

LEUNG Gook Bo arrived in Canada in 1906 as a child of about 9 years old. She entered at the Port of Vancouver recorded as Miss PO Long. Little is known about her family or early life.

Gook Bo married a merchant, CHIN Wong. By 1924, she had four children: two boys (CHIN Sir Hong and CHIN Sir Jan) and two girls (CHIN Yoke Yip and CHIN Yoke Chee). The family was residing in Vancouver at 876 Keefer Street. She raised her children, and appears to have remained in Chinatown most of her life.

One of her grandsons, Ryan Chan, recalls “We didn't see grandma very often. Gramps lived with us and grandma lived in a rooming house. When we were young, gramps would take us to Chinatown once a month and we would meet grandma for lunch at the BC Royal Cafe. She would then take us toy shopping at Woodward's Department Store. Once we started high school, we didn't see her much.”

She died at her Vancouver home in December 1968. Her death registration records her as being three years older (born 1893) than the age she provided upon arrival in Canada.

FONG Tong was born on February 3, 1907 in the village of Zhu Liu He (朱六合), Heshan (鹤山市), 廣東 Guangdong, China (中国). At the age of 14, he departed from Hong Kong for Canada on the S.S. Protesilaus, landing in Victoria on May 27, 1921.

An uncle, An Zhao (安兆), was responsible for bringing the young boy to Canada. Tong had to pay the $500 head tax.

It is believed that Tong attended school for two years before he started working in his uncle’s laundry shop in Frontier, Saskatchewan. He eventually became a waiter and made his way to Toronto to work in a restaurant. He worked both in the kitchen and as wait staff before becoming a partner in the White Rose Grill restaurant on Queen Street in Toronto.

Tong married his first wife, Ren Wan Zhen (任煥轉) in 1925. According to family ancestral records, the marriage was performed in the village without Tong being present. He was represented by an effigy as the groom.

Tong traveled to China to visit his first wife on two occasions, returning to Canada in 1931 and 1937. On the second visit, he and Ren Wan Zhen had a daughter, whom they named Qiu Lian (秋蓮) (b. April 3, 1936).

After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1947, Tong returned to China and married his second wife, Lee Toy How, (李財好) in 1948. Subsequently, son Kim (健民) was born in 1949. Tong returned to Canada 40 days after Kim was born, but did not have enough money to bring his wife and son over to Canada until 1957.

In addition to Kim, Tong and Toy How were blessed with four other children in Canada: Rosemarie (白玫), Irene (白蘭), Jack (植民), and Yoeman (佑民), all born in Toronto.

In thinking about Tong's life, his son, Kim M. Fong, remarks: "It's hard to imagine how difficult it must have been for a 14-year-old boy to leave his family in China to work in a foreign land. He carried the heavy burden of sending money back to support his relatives in China, as well as to repay his head tax debt.

There's no doubt our father worked hard all his life. The only holiday our family can ever recall was a day trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls. However, we will forever be grateful for all the struggles and sacrifices that our father had to endure, in order to provide a better life for his family in Canada.”

Regretfully, Tong passed away on April 10, 1972, after suffering a debilitating stroke from which he never recovered.

LUM Joe Ming was born and raised in the village of Antang 安堂 in 廣東 Guangdong province near Zhongshan city. He arrived in Canada in 1922 at 13 years old, joining his brothers as a vegetable seller. He would be known in the country also as Joe LUM and Tommy Ming LUM.

When Ming made a return visit to China in 1929 at 20 years old, his family arranged for him to marry 林玉蕑 (née Tseng Yook Lahn), who hailed from a neighbouring village in Guangdong province. The couple would be separated for a decade due to Canada's Exclusion Act, with Yook Lahn living with her in-laws in China. In 1940, she joined Ming in Canada as a ‘paper daughter’ under the assumed identity of Irene Wong of Victoria, B.C. Yook Lahn departed on one of the last boats leaving Hong Kong harbour before the Japanese captured the city.

Ming was a talented calligrapher and man of letters, but could not afford a formal education. In addition, Chinese in Canada were barred from entering the professions. Instead, he turned his sights to growing his family’s business in Vancouver. Ming, Irene, and their son Raymond, worked side-by-side at Canada Produce, a small grocery store and supplier of potatoes for White Spot’s famous french fries. Ming grew his business, undeterred by the discriminatory by-laws that curtailed Chinese retailers, nor the lobbying efforts of white grocers' associations. Canada Produce became a neighbourhood staple for fresh produce on Vancouver’s busy South Granville corridor.

Ming was actively involved with Chinese benevolent societies such as the Lum Sai Ho Tong (Lim Association), an organization with ties to Lum/Lim/Lam/Lem families in China, Hawai‘i, Australia, and beyond.

Ming passed away unexpectedly of an aneurysm on August 15, 1987.

In 2016, Ming's Canadian-born son Raymond, daughter-in-law Sharon, and two grandchildren travelled to Zhongshan to see the house that Ming helped finance for his parents, but never got to visit in his lifetime.

WONG Sing Po was born around 1903 in Yongnian village 永年村 in the Toisan county of Guangdong province, China. He graduated from Guangzhou Middle School 省立廣州中學 and served as principal of Ciu Ging Elementary School 潮境昌明小學 and Toisan Juzheng Middle School 台城居正中學 before being sponsored to Canada by the Wong Kung Har Tong 黃江夏堂 (an early branch of today’s Wongs’ Benevolent Association). Sing Po arrived in Vancouver in 1931 which would be home for the next decade while he served as principal of Mon Keang School 文彊學校.

The Wongs' founded Mon Keang School in 1925. It was one of a number of schools established by the local Chinese community to ensure their Canadian-born children would have a Chinese language and culture education. Schools sponsored teachers from China and Hong Kong. Affluent parents would send their children to China for additional schooling.

Sing Po was Chair of the Vancouver Chinese United Education Society 雲城華僑教育會 (colloquially known as the Chinese School Board) which brought together the various Chinese schools operating in Vancouver’s Chinatown under a uniform program of education and instruction. Under his leadership, students were taught the most modern teachings in history, science, geography and math.

Overseas Chinese nationalism surged following the Japanese occupation of China in 1931. Under Sing Po, Mon Keang School hosted regular fundraising efforts in the form of student plays, concerts and parades. He also helped establish and lead community groups created to mobilize Chinese Canadian fundraising and other support of the war effort in China and Canada’s involvement in WWII. These included the Kung Jai Association 駐雲高華埠加拿大華僑勸募救國公債總分會, Chinese Association for Promotion of Aviation 中國航空建設協會總會, Chinese War Refugee Relief Committee 救濟中國傷兵難民會, and Chinese War Relief Fund 駐溫哥華加拿大華僑義捐救國總會.

Sing Po emigrated to San Francisco in 1941 where he became principal of its local Chinese School 三凡市建國中學, editor of the Young China Morning Post 美國大埠少年中國晨報, and worked in the movie production industry of Chinese North America 中加美電影戲劇有限公司.

His return visit to Vancouver in 1955 was met by a month of hosted dinners celebrating his achievements within the Chinese community in Vancouver and throughout North America.

Sing Po died in San Francisco in 1965.

MAH Been was born around 1906 in the district of 台山 Toisan / Taishan, 廣東 Guangdong province. He arrived in Victoria, BC in September 1922 paying the $500 head tax.

By 1924, he was living at 251 Graham Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his father, MAH Fuey, and attending school.

He died on June 7, 1955, in Coquitlam, BC.

Bernard George Webber and Jean Patricia Browne met while studying for their respective teaching certifications at Provincial Normal School in Victoria, British Columbia. After graduating in 1938, they took positions in rural schools, maintaining contact by correspondence. The couple married in 1941 and made Osoyoos their first home. Bernard had been active in politics with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) since a teenager in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was nominated and elected as CCF candidate for Member of Legislative Assembly in 1941 representing Similkameen, serving as education critic until 1945. Throughout this time, Jean ran his constituency office and was a valued speaker on CCF issues while she maintained the couple’s home and growing family in Penticton.

After Bernard’s unsuccessful run in the next two general elections in B.C. in 1945 and 1949, the couple returned to their teaching careers. Bernard and Jean fought hard to obtain and upgrade their education. For many years while working and raising their family, they took additional courses at UBC to earn their respective Bachelors and Masters degrees, usually through summer courses.

Bernard enjoyed a distinguished career in education administration at the school, district and ministry levels, retiring in 1979 as a celebrated educator and administrator. Conversely, Jean’s teaching career reflected the prevailing attitudes about the role of women in society, and her obligations as wife and mother of five children. Bernard’s career advanced as Jean struggled to have her qualifications recognized. Jean retired in 1975 having specialized in teaching in multi-graded rural schools.

Bernard and Jean contributed to the advancement of Indigenous rights and education across their political, professional and volunteer lives. They maintained a lifelong commitment to the issue through their close friendship with Anthony Walsh, whom they met in 1940 while Walsh was teacher at the Inkameep Day School on the Nk’mip reserve. Walsh was renowned for his teaching within the day school system that integrated Indigenous knowledge and culture into classroom learning and instilled pride in his students’ native heritage at a time when the government’s residential school system sought to erase Indigenous culture. His methods contributed directly to the resurgence of Indigenous cultural production in the region, which Bernard and Jean actively supported in the 1940s and 50s through amateur theatre and drama festivals, including as members of the Society for the Revival of Indian Arts and Crafts. As an education administrator, Bernard advocated for courses in Indigenous languages, history and culture, specifically of the Haisla people while as District Superintendent of Schools in Kitimat. Jean advocated for Indigenous issues through her various writing; notably, in her authorship of the CCF’s Indigenous policy in 1945, and in her writing and editing in the 1980s on the Indigenous history of the Okanagan.

Jean and Bernard were active volunteering in local arts councils and historical societies, particularly after moving to the Okanagan in 1965. Jean made significant contributions to federal and provincial arts policy as a representative of the region. They wrote extensively on the local history of the Okanagan and Kootenays, including over many years as members of the Okanagan Historical Society where Jean served as editor of Okanagan History: Report of the Okanagan Historical Society from 1982-1988 and Bernard as its President from 1989-1991.

The couple’s careers in politics and education brought them to many rural regions of British Columbia and particularly the Okanagan where they became involved also in local arts and history. Together, they contributed to the development of political thought, the education system, arts and culture policy, history writing, and the Indigenous heritage of the province.

CHOU Yoi Low was born around 1893 in the district of 番禺 Punyu / Panyu, 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC in 1913 paying the $500 head tax.

By 1924, he was living at 860 Fisgard Street in Victoria, and worked as a labourer. He had a wife and son in China, but no known relatives in Canada.

Chou Yoi Low died in his home in Port Alberni on July 4, 1954. His personal effects at death totalled $37.42 in cash, a silver Tavannes wristwatch, his C.I.5 certificate, two gold loans issued by the Republic of China, and two Liberty Bonds each worth $50.

LEONG Dak was born around 1878 in the district of 新會 Sunwui / Xinhui, 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC, in December 1903.

In 1914, he was living in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. By 1924, he was living at 10242 96th Street in Edmonton, Alberta, and was working as a market gardener. He had a wife in China whom he presumably traveled home a number of times to visit in the 1920s and 1930s.

His death on February 20, 1945 was registered in Kelowna, BC. He left behind in China a widow (LEONG Huang Shih), three sons (LEONG Shen, LEONG Nen, and LEONG An), and a daughter (LEONG Hsiao).

MAR Fai was born around 1888 in the district of 新寧 Sunning / Xinning (later 台山 Toisan / Taishan), 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC, in 1912, paying the head tax of $500.

By 1924, he was living in Union Bay, BC, and working as a labourer. He was married with a wife in China.

GEE Jew arrived in Canada in 1902 as a 26-year-old labourer. By 1912, he was living in Greenwood, B.C.

WONG Hing arrived in Canada in 1883 prior to the passing of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1885.

By 1924, he was living at the Freemason House in Nelson, B.C. as a 64-year-old labourer. He had lived in the town for 36 years and was well known.

Wong Hing returned to China in October 1930 with no plans to come back to Canada.

JEE Sew Theen arrived in Canada in 1921 at the age of 15.

In 1924, he was a student living at 654 East Hastings Street in Vancouver, B.C.

The origins of the Wongs’ Benevolent Association in Canada date back to 1912; the Wong Wun Sun Society and the Wong Kung Har Tong Society 黃江夏堂 were founded among numerous Chinese societies providing support to early Chinese immigrants within a racist white society. The Wongs' Association was formed in 1970 when the two founding Wongs' societies merged.

Overseas Chinese formed membership-based social service and mutual aid societies organized by surname/clan and home villages/districts. They provided support in the areas of housing, employment, banking and loans, immigration and legal services, political organizing, English language services and education, and burials.

Membership within the Wongs’ Benevolent Association is bound by the surname Wong 黃 (and 王 to a lesser extent). Members share ancestral roots in the districts of Toisan 台山 and Hoiping 開平 in the southern province of Guangdong 廣東 in China.

In Vancouver, the Association’s legacies include the Mon Keang Chinese School 文彊學校 and Hon Hsing Athletic Club 漢升體育會, both founded in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In the post-war period, the Association is known for playing a significant role in the founding of the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Florence (“Flossie”) Bartlett Clements was the daughter of James H. and Mary Clements, who arrived in Peachland from Ontario in 1908. In Peachland, they built and ran a general store for the community. James also worked as the Canadian Pacific Railway Express Agent and served as a town councilor. The family ran their general store up until the beginning of the Second World War, when it was closed.

J.D. Whitham married Florence Bartlett Clements in June 1928. Together they had a son, James Gordon, and a daughter, Dorothy Jean.

Daisy Millar was married to Albert Millar, “who was internationally prominent in the oil industry before coming to Oliver.” In Oliver, Albert Millar was an orchardist and partner in the Oliver Sawmill.
Daisy Millar is the presumed author of the letters, based on the understanding that the Millar’s were involved in the oil industry in the area of Eastern Europe referred to in the letters.
Additionally, Daisy Millar was a sister of Harold Wright who was active as a manager and part owner of Oliver Sawmill. The Wrights were a very prominent family in Oliver's early days.
Their home, now termed The Millar Residence, is today a registered heritage structure in Oliver.
Albert and Daisy Millar were close friends of George E. and Gertrude Mabee when both families lived in Oliver, B.C.

Anna Banana was born on 24 February 1940 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is an artist known for her participation in the Mail Art network, performance art, writing, and work as a small press publisher, producing the almost 50 year running Banana Rag, VILE magazine from 1974-1984, International Art Post, and various artistamp editions. She has lived in and operated out of Victoria, San Fransisco, Vancouver and the Sunshine coast. She has also toured internationally on a number of occasions, predominantly through Europe and North America. She herself considered her work to be “a costume and the creation of a character,” and called herself an “incurable collector.”

After graduating in 1957 from Victoria High School, she attended the University of British Columbia from 1958-1963 and graduated with an elementary academic teaching certificate. After this, she taught for five years, in public schools for two and then at the Vancouver New School for three. At Vancouver’s New School she was first called Anna Banana by students, and she noted that the name stuck after falling into a crate of bananas at a party. In the late 1960s she became disillusioned with her life as a wife, mother and teacher, and relocated to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for a period of 18 months, where she learned massage.

After her stint at Esalen, she moved back to Victoria, supporting herself through massage workshops and batik making. In August 1971 she “went bananas” and declared herself the Town Fool of Victoria, continuing to hold this post until 1972. During this period she would often go to schools with painted rocks and set up voluntary arts and crafts instruction for students, under the Anna Banana pseudonym. She would issue degrees in “Bananology” (i.e. the art of being bananas) to participants, and this continued for many years to come. During this period she wrote an article for Maclean’s magazine which describes her rejection of consumer culture in these years, living in a cabin with no running water for $35 a month, on an income of around $25 a week. She began to publish the Banana Rag newsletter in 1971 in order to contact, involve and inform the general public about her aims and activities in Victoria at the time. One of these reached some Vancouver based artists who had begun to correspond within the network, and Banana was quickly introduced to the International Mail Art Network by artist Gary Lee Nova (AKA Art Rat), beginning her decades long engagement with mail art. Her first requests were that mail artists send her banana related items, including images and general information – of which she collected more than 1200 over the course of her career. Networkers who provided these items were awarded a Masters Degree in Bananology and a note.

By August 1973 she had moved to San Francisco, landing a job at the SF Bay Guardian. In her time in San Fransisco she organized the first Banana Olympics in 1975, explored performance art alongside a number of Dadaist compatriots, and published VILE magazine in February 1974 in response to a comment made in FILE magazine saying that mail art was “Quik-Kopy Krap”. VILE would eventually have 7 editions, with Bill Gaglione, her partner at the time, publishing 3 of them, culminating in a special issue called About VILE in 1983. Anna and Bill Gaglione would go on to tour Europe with their “Futurist Sound” performances, from September to December 1978.

In the mid-1970’s, Anna began to create her own stamps, in response to a mail art invitation. When, in the 1980s, she wanted to begin monetizing her activities, she requested that networkers pay for her Banana Rag subscription in order to maintain contact with her. By 1986, she began to look to stamps as a way of increasing the income generated from her activities, producing multiple editions of various artistamps, into the mid-2000s, under the issuing authority of a fictitious “Bananaland”. While working in production department of Intermedia Press from 1983 to 1985, she learned full-colour printing, which she would go on to use to issue International Art Post, which ran from 1988 to 2011.

In 1981 she moved back to Vancouver, British Columbia, around the same time divorcing Bill Caglione (an event which she would call the “Banana Split”). In 1980 she held the 2nd Banana Olympics in Surrey, British Columbia, and in 1985 she legally changed her name to Anna Banana. This period stands out for her production of artistamps, although she remained an avid networker and performance artist. She curated performance art shows such as Artropolis, and engaged in performances such as“Wild Women” and “World Series”, as well as other performance art shows on tours through North America and Europe.

In the 1990s, she began the Special Research Insitute, where she performed goofy dada-esque research projects, such as “Proof Positive That Germany Is Going Bananas” (1993), “A Survey of Banana Culture in Victoria BC” and “But Is It Art?” (2011). She led the institute under the name Dr. Anna Freud Banana. In 2001, she began creating Artist Trading Cards, and would continue to trade these at various events throughout the 2000s.

Anna moved to the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia in 1995, where she currently lives.

Constituted under the Societies Act in 1989. The Klondike Sun records events and activities in Dawson City, Yukon, and the surrounding Klondike Region.