Person

Lee, Hee Chong

• Lee, Fat Sing
• Lee, Yin Geow

1883-1954

LEE Hee Chong (also known as LEE Fat Sing) was a leading Montreal businessman whose family spans several generations of Chinese Canadian history. Lee Hee Chong’s father came to Canada around 1880; Lee Hee Chong’s eldest son, Arthur Lee, was a prominent community leader and philanthropist who lived until 2002. Many of Lee Hee Chong’s descendants live in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere in North America.

He was born in August 1883 in I Gong village, 台山 Toisan / Taishan, 廣東 Guangdong province. His father arrived in Canada to work on the railroad before returning to China. Lee Hee Chong came to Canada in August 1903 on board the Empress of China. He paid the $100 head tax shortly before the amount increased to $500. He worked in a laundry in St. Jean before moving to Montreal to become a partner and manager of Wing Lung, an import-export trading company.

Around 1910, he returned to China and married Fong Shee and their daughter Jessie was born in I Gong in 1911. In 1915, he brought them to Canada. They were exempt from paying the head tax as the wife and daughter of a merchant. A further six sons were born in Montreal. Lee Hee Chong continued to manage Wing Lung, and remained in Montreal when his two oldest children, Jessie and Arthur, moved to Hong Kong in 1935 with Jessie’s in-laws. Lee Hee Chong and his family lived at 1162 St. Urbain in Montreal. The family business suffered greatly during WWII after shipments from China were cut off.

When Lee Hee Chong’s son Arthur returned from China in 1946, the family founded Wing Hing Lung, a noodle manufacturing business in Montreal Chinatown which later became known as Wing’s Noodles Ltd. Lee Hee Chong and his wife moved to Notre Dame de Grace, a suburb of Montreal, after the war. He died on June 25, 1954. Arthur and Samuel oversaw the growth of the noodle business, which produced fresh, dry and fried noodles, along with egg roll and won ton covers, and later diversified into fortune cookies, almond cookies, sauces and rice noodles. Wing’s was the first producer of fortune cookies in eastern Canada and introduced bilingual French-and-English fortune cookies. From 1965 until 2022, Wing’s factory was located in the oldest building in Montreal Chinatown, the former British and Canadian School, built in 1826. Wing’s continues to be owned and operated by Lee Hee Chong’s grandchildren.

Arthur Lee was a kindly, unpretentious and generous man. He felt blessed for the ability to give to worthy causes in the Montreal community, including hospitals and churches. He donated a pagoda that stood in Chinatown for many years. He also gave generously to his ancestral village in Toisan, including donations for the village school. He died in Montreal on November 10, 2002, at age 86. His wife Maureen died on December 30. 2017, at age 94. He and Maureen had four sons, Gilbert (Rebecca), Carson (Deborah), Gavin (Linda) and Garnet (Joanne).

Fong Shee (wife of Lee Hee Chong) (1890-1993)

Description supplied by collector/curator