Person

Quan, Mary

• Lee, Mary

1921-1991

For Mary Quan, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, education was a major force that propelled her forward into a life she likely could not have imagined as a child.

She was born in Vancouver in 1921, the eldest Canadian-born child of Quan Wing Gow and Der Shee, whose parents were farmers in [開平 Hoiping / Kaiping], Guangdong province. The Quan family lived at 147 West 7th Avenue in Mount Pleasant, a working-class Vancouver neighbourhood. The family spoke a village dialect of Cantonese at home; Mary spoke no English when she started elementary school.

In 1935, her father took her and two younger brothers to China and enrolled them in boarding school in Canton (now Guangzhou) so that they would become proficient in Chinese language and culture. After the Japanese military began bombing Canton in fall 1937, Mary’s school was evacuated twice. The three children returned to Canada in March 1938 and had to re-adjust to attending school in English. Mary completed high school at King Edward High in Vancouver, ranking first in her class every year. Although at the time daughters of Chinese families in Vancouver commonly entered arranged marriages, Mary’s teachers encouraged her to set her sights on winning a scholarship to UBC.

In 1941, Mary ranked first in the Lower Mainland and third in the province in the junior matriculation examinations, winning a full tuition scholarship to UBC. She was the first in her family to attend university. Her four years at UBC opened the doors to a wider world. After her first and second years, she won a University Scholarship based on her class rank in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She majored in Honours English to pursue her love of literature and studied with renowned professor G.G. Sedgewick. She was president of the Chinese Students Club and secretary-treasurer of the Letters Club. Upon graduating from UBC in 1945 with first-class honours, she won the University Graduate Scholarship, which supported her in earning a master's degree in comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City. As a child of Chinese immigrants who faced discrimination in the broader society, Mary quoted Thomas Mann: “I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither.”

In 1947 in New York City, she met Frank B. Lee, who had excelled academically in his engineering studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He had also won numerous scholarships and awards, and was elected president of the Engineering Society in his senior year. Mary and Frank were married in Vancouver in 1947. Over the years, they lived in Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, Quebec, the State of Washington, and southern California. They traveled to China, Southeast Asia, Nepal, Mexico, Spain and Morocco, the Caribbean, and Alaska. She and Frank had three children. In a loving and supportive home, Mary encouraged her children to find their capabilities and pursue their chosen studies and careers. David became a computer engineer. Carol and Ron became lawyers.

Mary died in 1991.

Quan, Wing Gow (1891–1969)

Quan, Ben Dick (1923-1989)

Description supplied by collector/curator