Person

Ko, Hong Foo

• 區富

• Ko, Hong
• Koa, Hong
• Koa, Hong Foo
• Koo, Hong Foo
• Ah Foo
• Foo, Charlie

1894-1980

Born in China on October 13, 1894 in the district of [開平 Hoiping / Kaiping], he arrived in Canada at age 25 as KO Hong Foo and would become known as Charlie FOO.

He joined his cousin in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who had arrived 20 years earlier and started a laundry business. Charlie worked at his cousin’s laundry, but he did not like the laundry business, and he soon left to become a tailor’s apprentice.

Charlie worked his way up and eventually ran his own tailor shop. The Great Depression hit his business hard, however, so he took a job as a salesman with Western Packers, a meatpacking company, where he worked from 1929 to 1945.

His grandson, Alan Wong, explained, “Our grandfather’s way of proving himself to get a job at Western Packers was to tell the boss that he would work for them for a week without pay. If they were happy with his work, then they would have to hire him… and they did!”

He married Frances Mary Victoria Phillips, a white British immigrant. The couple raised six children together: Pat, Helen, Fred, Walter, Lily, and Harold.

Later, Charlie became a successful restaurateur. He entered into a partnership in a restaurant known as Chan’s Café, where he remained until 1975, when the cafe was sold and he retired to Vancouver.

Throughout his life, Charlie worked hard to build bridges between Chinese and non-Chinese communities. In 1925, he was elected chairman of the local Chinese National League, which supported Winnipeg’s Chinese community. As a result of the discrimination he faced throughout his life in Canada, Charlie firmly believed that learning English was the best way for himself and other Chinese immigrants to assimilate into Canadian society, and he encouraged other Chinese immigrants to learn English.

Because of his advocacy, he was often referred to through the 1950s and 1960s as the unofficial mayor of Winnipeg’s Chinatown. During WWII, he was one of the organizers of the Anti-Japanese Aggression Association, which raised money for war relief in China. He also represented the Manitoba Chinese Benevolent Association in lobbying against Chinese Exclusion, and travelled to Ottawa 13 times to advocate against Canada’s restrictive immigration laws that prevented Chinese immigrants in Canada from being reunited with their families still in China.

He also served as a mentor to Philip S. Lee, the first Chinese Canadian Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, whom Charlie believed had the intellectual and language skills to carry on his advocacy.

His family remember him as a proud, loving father and grandfather. His granddaughter Nancy recalled, “our grandfather shaved every day but before he did, he would often give us a whisker burn, cheek to cheek, while chuckling with that wheezy laugh that he had.”

His grandson Brian remembered, “He attended my graduation parade from Officer Candidate School in Chilliwack and I remember how proud he was of my military haircut and shoes that were shinier than his routinely highly polished ones.”

Charlie passed away on May 25, 1980, in Vancouver.

Description supplied by collector/curator