Person

Sam, Lilian

• 黃愛

• Low, Sui Oy
• Low, Lilian
• Lowe, Lilian

1919-2017

Born LOW Sui Oy, Lilian Sam was a headstrong feisty waitress, "glamour girl", translator, seamstress, and mother of six.

She was born on August 26th, 1919 at 389 E. Hastings Street, Vancouver to parents Low Wing (father) and Wong Shee (mother). Not much is known about her father, whom she claimed she never knew (though there is photo evidence they met), but there are tales of him being a butler for a member of parliament or a cook.

Lilian said her mother was a musician who played the "Chinese piano" in the brothels of Chinatown, though it was likely her mother, Wong Shee, was a sex worker and/or madam in the same establishments she played at. During Lilian's childhood, she spent many years in an orphanage for Chinese children in Victoria (possibly the Oriental Home and School) alongside her sisters, Jessie & Sui Hing Low, while her mother relocated to Toronto and Ottawa with her 4 sons: Richard, Harry, Tommy, and Jimmy.

At the age of 13, Lilian dropped out of school to support her family and began to waitress at the BC Royal Cafe and then the Pender Cafe. During those years waitressing, Lilian and her friends, Dorothy Burton and Marie Bandura-nee Joseph (sisters from the Qayqayt First Nation), were known about Chinatown as the "Glamour Girls" as they would often dress up in the latest fashions, gaining them attention from the young men of the neighbourhood.

At the age of 21, Lilian was betrothed to a man named Kenny Sui Yuk, who after impregnating her left her for another woman - leaving Lilian to raise their son, Robert Yorke (his last name was changed out of spite), alone.

In the 1940s, being a single-mother with a child out of wedlock, Lilian was ostracised from Chinatown, causing her to have many feelings of resentment towards the community and ultimately leading her to move from the area to the Commercial Drive area in the 1950s.

While in the new neighbourhood, she met Gordon Sui Chong Sam, a nearby mechanic, whom she later married in 1953. Together, they added five more children to their family and were deeply in love until Lilian passed in 2017 surrounded by her large family, shortly after her 98th birthday.

Lilian was loved deeply by her family and those who knew her. She was admired for her stubborn attitude, great-sense of humour, and determination to be happy - against all odds.

Wong Shee (wife of Low Wing) ([1887]-1958)

Lowe, Thomas (1916-1936)

Description supplied by collector/curator