Person

Chin, Thick Foo

• 陳錫扶
• 陳明昌

• Chan, Fred

1898-1971

CHIN Thick Foo was born in China in 1898 in Ai Long village, Thum Gup township, in the [新寧 Sunning / Xinning] county of 廣東 Guangdong province. The area would later be known as [台山 Toisan / Taishan]. He came from a farming family and was raised by his two older brothers and older sister as his father died when he was an infant and his mother later on.

He arrived in Vancouver, BC on April 6, 1914 and paid the $500 head tax. Although he is recorded as 20 years old, his family shared that he left China at age 16. He traveled in place of his older brother, who was selected to come, but became ill; someone else had to use the purchased passage. At age 16, he was underage and had to prove he was 20, the minimum age of entry.

His youngest son, Wes Chan, shared: “The Chinese interpreter/official said that there was no way that he was 20, but kindly allowed him to enter. My dad told us that the official knew he wasn’t 20, but looked the other way because he was compassionate… The immigration officer who interviewed him was Mr. Won Alexander Cumyow, the first Chinese born in Canada… [Cumyow] took pity on this boy orphan, [and] let him enter and [go] to Weyburn, a small town of a few hundred people in Saskatchewan… [My dad] also told us he came with only 50 cents in his pocket. Pretty amazing story for a 16-year-old to live through and tell and he always made sure we remembered it around his kitchen table talks.”

Thick Foo was sponsored by an ‘uncle’ who brought him over to work in a hotel/restaurant in a small town in South Central Saskatchewan. Over the years, he worked in many towns.

He learned English from Sunday school teachers at the Baptist Church and eventually saved enough to buy his own hotel/restaurant. This was the beginning of his business success. These Baptist teachers also gave him the name Fred, because it sounded the most like Foo.

He returned to China a couple times in the early 1920s to marry (an arranged marriage) and have two sons and a daughter.

The Exclusion Act and war separated them and he lost contact with his family in China; this is when he married Jessie Chow in 1946. However, well after the war, he found out his ‘other family’ was alive, with the exception of his oldest two children who died from disease and possibly starvation.

Fred and Jessie had four children. After many years on the prairies, Fred had eventually settled in the Maritimes and his four children were born in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. In 1949, Fred's son from his first marriage, Howe Chan, arrived in Canada at age 16 and lived near the family.

He and his family returned to Vancouver in 1968, five years after he sold his business and retired.

Fred passed away in March, 1971 in Burnaby, BC.

Wes Chan noted that his father “truly embraced Canadian culture. He loved all sports, but none greater than ice hockey and Hockey Night in Canada was a Saturday night ritual. His favourite movies were Westerns because they reminded him of the days when cowboys rode into prairie towns wearing six-shooters. And a memorable moment was when Prime Minister Lester Pearson came into his restaurant, The Palace Grill in Moncton NB, where they shook hands.”

Chow, Jessie (1916-1999)

Description supplied by collector/curator