Person

Gin, Yee

• 甄開瑞
• 甄裕

• Gin, Yue
• Gin, Yee
• Jean, Yee

1882-1965

GIN Yee was born in 1882. He arrived in Canada in 1908 with his two brothers, paying the $500 head tax.

One of his first jobs in Canada was delivering coal which involved having to ride in an open wagon during the winter months. Gin Yee was often harassed by gangs of white boys. He suffered a bad leg injury during one of these encounters and had trouble walking the rest of his life.

Later, Yee opened a laundry. It was a small, wood-frame store on Robson Street in Vancouver. He lived in the back where he washed the clothes. He did the ironing in the front of the store and wrapped up the cleaned laundry in brown paper bundles, which he placed on shelves behind the counter. Yee kept a long wooden pole beside the shelves. The pole was in easy reach and was intended to help him fend off any hoodlums who might try to rob him.

Over the decade separated from his family, Yee sent money back to China with the intention of returning one day and buying more land. However, when the Communists took over, all of Yee’s lands were taken away and the family was left with just the house.

With the farmlands gone, Gin Yee brought his two sons to Canada, in 1951 and 1952. However, Yee’s wife, his sons' wives and the grandchildren stayed behind. When the Communists began prosecuting former landowners, the women and grandchildren escaped to Hong Kong. Yee continued to send money to support his family and to help them buy a place to live in Hong Kong.

In 1958, his youngest son, Wing Hah (also known as George Gin) brought his wife, 8-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, to Canada.

Yee gave up his laundry business when his eyesight started to fail him. There was no room in the small apartment his son’s family lived in, so Yee moved into a rooming house not far away. He would visit his son’s family for dinner every Sunday.

As his grandson, Bill Gin, recalls “Our apartment was on the third floor. I would watch from the window for him to come, so that I could help him walk up the stairs. For that, he would always reward me a nickel and tell me not to spend it, but save it.”

In 1965, Yee died suddenly when he fell from his second-storey open hallway. It was believed he had lost his balance and broke through the wooden railing. After his death, his son finally brought Gin Yee’s wife over to Canada.

Description supplied by collector/curator