Person

Fong Shee (wife of Lee Hee Chong)

• Yip, Toy Kee
• Mrs. Lee Yin Geow

1890-1993

Fong Shee (YIP Toy Kee) became one of a small number of Chinese women in Montreal when she arrived in 1915. Mother of a daughter born in China and six sons born in Canada, she was loved and admired by her family and by the Chinese community. The oldest resident of Montreal Chinatown, she died at age 102 in 1993.

She was born in Bang Gong village, 台山 Toisan / Taishan, 廣東 Guangdong province, in October 1890. Her husband LEE Hee Chong, who had emigrated from Toisan to Canada in 1903, returned to China around 1910 to marry her. Their daughter Jessie was born in 1911 in his native village. In 1915, she and Jessie accompanied her husband to Montreal; they were exempt from paying the head tax as the wife and daughter of a merchant. He was the manager and a partner of Wing Lung, a grocery and import-export store in Montreal. Fong Shee later recalled that she was one of only about a dozen Chinese women in Montreal. She and her family lived on Chenneville street on the western edge of the Chinese quarter, where many of the residents were Jewish. In Montreal, Fong Shee gave birth to six sons: Arthur (b. 1916), Samuel (b. 1917), Howard (b. 1919), William (b. 1921), Robert (b. 1924), and Kenneth (b. 1929). The family moved to 1162 St. Urbain and later to Notre Dame de Grâce, a suburb of Montreal.

After WWII, the family established Wing Hing Lung, which became Wing’s Noodles in the 1970s. Wing’s produced noodles and later expanded into fortune cookies, almond cookies, and other food products. Sons Arthur and Samuel oversaw the growth of the business in Montreal. In 1953, Kenneth and Howard established Wing’s Food Products in Toronto. The Toronto-based business diversified from noodles to become a major manufacturer of condiments and other food products. Wing’s Foods of Alberta began operations in 1976. Fong Shee’s daughter Jessie was the first Chinese Canadian woman to work at Sun Life Insurance Company in Montreal. Two of Fong Shee’s sons became engineers. William, who graduated from McGill in mechanical engineering, worked at the heavy water nuclear reactor at Chalk River. He died from radiation exposure at age 26 in 1947. Robert, who graduated from McGill in metallurgical engineering, made his name in the field of metallurgy while working with Canadian Liquid Air Limited. He is credited with 200 patents. His inventions have made significant contributions in several spheres, including steel refining, chemicals, energy and environmental protection. Robert was awarded the Order of Canada in 2004.

Fong Shee’s husband Lee Hee Chong died in 1954. In her later years, she lived with her widowed daughter Jessie in Montreal’s Chinatown and spent winters in Florida. By 1989, she was the oldest Chinese Canadian lady in Eastern Canada. She was a gracious and humble person, the beloved matriarch of her extended family, which numbered around seventy at the time of her death. She passed away on July 10, 1993 and is buried next to her husband at Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

Lee, Hee Chong (1883-1954)

Description supplied by collector/curator