Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Wong Shee (wife of Low Wing)
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- Mrs. Low Wing
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Description area
Dates of existence
[1887]-1958
History
Wong Shee is believed to have been born in Northern China; family accounts relay that some of her first memories were of snow. At a young age, she was sold to human traffickers to be what our family referred to as a "child slave", something believed to be close to an indentured servant.
In her youth, she was moved to the southern Guangdong province where she entered into some sort of contract to be a man's "colonial wife" in Vancouver. She is recorded as being born in 1887, but her family believes that she or her traffickers reported her to be older to gain entry into Canada.
She arrived in Victoria in 1909, then was moved to Vancouver to meet her new "husband", Low Wing. It is said that when she got to Vancouver, she realized she would not be "free" as she had been promised, and so Wong Shee fled to the community of Ladner.
It is not known how long she was in Ladner, but it is known that she was "recaptured" and forced to marry Low Wing. Not much is known about her husband. In family stories, he is said to be a butler for a Member of Parliament, but it is recorded that he worked as a cook.
During their "marriage", Low Wing moved Wong Shee across the country multiple times to both Toronto and Ottawa. During these moves, Wong Shee was forced to leave her daughters in the care of an orphanage in Victoria, while she was allowed to bring her sons with her. It is said that for work, Wong Shee played the "Chinese piano" in brothels across the different Chinatowns, though it is believed that her husband forced her to be a sex worker and/or madam in the same establishments she played.
Wong Shee had eight children in total; it is not known if her husband fathered them all, as many of her children reported to have never met their biological father. Her first child, Richard, was sold to a rich family in Victoria, though kept in touch with his biological family for many years. Four of her other children died in their late teens/early twenties of tuberculosis.
In her older age, she lived with her daughter, Lilian, and helped raise Lilian’s first child, Robert.
Later on, when Lilian married her husband, Gordon SAM, Wong Shee helped raise their first two children, Richard and Georgina.
Wong Shee passed away in 1958 of a stroke, leaving behind her large family.
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