Letty Wong
June 1, 1931 – January 4, 2025
By Al Yuen and Karen Yuen
Maybe because they’re Hakka. Maybe because Chans are even
tempered people. Maybe their family owes a lot to their parents. For all of
these reasons, Letty and her brothers and sisters were especially close knit
and mindful of each other.
Her father, Chan Gang Jeung, was born in 1904. When he was
17, he left his village in Guangdong to come to San Francisco which included a stay on Angel Island on the way. When he was 21, he went back to be married. He
and his bride, Yin Wong, started the Chan clan in a second floor apartment
above Grant Avenue, between Jackson and Washington Streets. Five children were
born there: Hugh Won, Clarence, Letty, Marjorie and Nancy. After a move to a
bigger place, the second floor of 825 Sacramento, four more were born: George,
Donald, James and Mabel.
Early pictures of Letty and her sisters show haircuts of
straight bangs, straight sides, and high in the back. Her father worked as a
barber at 155 Waverly Place.
Letty was born June 1, 1931, the first of 4 daughters, the third
of 9 children. She and her other sisters scrubbed clothes on wash boards in the
kitchen, lugged the wet clothes to the roof on the fifth floor to dry. The
girls ironed. The brothers and sisters took turns sweeping the linoleum floors
of their bedroom and living room. The three youngest slept in the bedroom with
the parents, and others setup the living each night for sleeping. Down the hall
was a communal bathtub and toilet. One day, they got in an argument and Letty threw the iron at George (thankfully missed) and Letty showed maybe she wasn’t so even tempered after all.
Letty’s mother worked for a sewing factory, bringing the
youngest children to work, or bringing work home. To relax, she embroidered.
Her stove consisted of two gas hot plates on which she made dinner: minced
pork, vegetables and rice.
Letty attended kindergarten across the street at the First
Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco. There, she received her name. She went
on to first grade at Commodore Stockton where she and her older brother set
scholastic examples that Miss Behm and other teachers expected of the rest of
the family. She attended Hip Wo Chinese School where she refined her Cantonese.
Francisco Junior High and Galileo High were next. When she
was 14, she got a Saturday job doing housework in non-Chinese homes in the
Richmond district. There she found rugs to vacuum and oak furniture to dust.
She gave most of her pay to her parents for house expenses, but was allowed to
keep a little which she saved so she could go to movies at the Embassy Theatre
on Market Street, or eat a Spreckles ice cream bar on the way home from school,
or take piano lessons. She practiced on the church piano across the street,
where she also taught Sunday School. When she was 18, she started working at
Joseph Magnin, one of the many department stores downtown. She used the adding
machine in the office to total the day’s sales slips. Company uniform was
hosiery and skirts. She gave half her paycheck to her parents and saved the
rest.
She was given a scholarship to UC Berkeley after high school.
After two years, she left school to work full time at Joseph Magnin. At this
time, the parents acquired a telephone. One day, Cliff Wong called her and
invited her to a YMCA party.
In 1953 the family bought property with flats at 2402
Larkin. They moved out of their 3 rooms in Chinatown to one of the flats which
had a kitchen stove, bathtub and toilet. No more communal bathrooms where creeps
would peek through holes in the wall.
Cliff went into the army and he corresponded with Letty from
Japan. He wrote to her every day and she wrote back once a week. After he
returned, they were married in 1955. Their first apartment was at Washington
and Jones Street, about 8 blocks from her parents’ home on Filbert and Larkin.
Each Sunday they went to her parents’ house for dinner, joined by all her
brothers and sisters and their families.
In 1958, Brian was born. In 1962, Karen was about to be born
and the apartment was too small for four people. Cliff was commuting to
Berkeley, so they decided to leave Chinatown for the East Bay. Frances, Cliff’s
sister who was living in Richmond, found them a home 6 blocks away on McBryde
Avenue. She introduced friends (Mary Dong, Fong Foo, Ellen Wong and Addie Dong
and Eileen Tong) to Letty with whom Letty could play mahjong until she was in
her 80’s. They usually played every Tuesday and Friday from 8 pm to 1 am. Winners would put 25% into a pot which they
used to take the husbands out to dinner (many of the same husbands played poker
together).
Letty babysat Frances’ youngest daughter Debbie when Frances
went to work, and she babysat Clarence’s kids, David and Carolyn, when Clarence’s
wife Esther passed away. She started baking cookies for the children in the
house and started knitting again. Recipes and projects got more complex and
soon people were talking about her desserts and her hand made sweater and
blankets. Letty’s creations were done perfectly and precisely because, as she said, “If you’re going to do something, you should do it right.”
In 1970, Letty found a house on Madera Circle in El Cerrito
with a big kitchen and lots of room for the kids. Cliff had taught her to drive
after they moved to Richmond. Now she drove the kids to music or sports games. As
the kids got older, their friends would often come to the house to play poker or
just hang out. Some of them drank and would stay overnight because, as Cliff
and Letty said, “It’s better and safer if they sleep here.” If Letty was home
(and not playing MJ), she would chat with Brian’s inebriated friends while
knitting and watching sports on the TV. She probably knew more about the drinking
and hijinks than Cliff did because he was usually working or playing poker
late.
During these years away from San Francisco, they drove
across the bay and continued Sunday lunch and dinners at her parents’ with the Chan
family. They also spent one week in the summer at the Wongs’ cabin at 1060
Herbert in South Lake Tahoe with the Chans. Letty and sisters would prepare
meals while the uncles and kids would do KP. There were only 2 showers for 30+
people, so people had to sign up for turns (hopefully before the hot water ran
out). They would pitch tents in the backyard for the kids to sleep in, while
the adults slept in the cabin (some dads slept in their trucks or van).
The week in Tahoe with the Chan family was followed by
another week with Gene “The General” and Winnie, Al “Dynamite” and Kathy Ong,
Al “Doc” and Kathy Chan and their families. Letty and Cliff often traveled with
this group to Asia and Europe. Letty often said that she probably wouldn’t have
seen all these places if it hadn’t been for Doc planning and arranging their
trips.
Letty’s daily schedule changed in 1988 when Lindsay (first
grandchild) was born. She would babysit two days a week and would do this with
Cliff (who retired in 1990 shortly before Courtney was born), sometimes from El
Cerrito and sometimes in Fairfield when the kids got to be school age. She had
a bout of depression and Cliff would take over the baby sitting of Brannon and
Briley. Thankfully she was able to get over most of the depression and would reconvene
playing MJ and having weekly Monday night dinners with Brian and Karen’s
families. This would be followed up with Dessert with Charcoal and Marjorie,
Jerald and Julie and her family.
“I come from such a big family that I’m used to having the
family around. I guess taking care of people is something women do very
naturally and easily. I never gave it much thought when I became Pau Pau as
well as Mom,” she said. Her mother died in 1982 and when her father died in
1994, 40 years of going across the bay on Sundays ended. But parental
remembrance is strong and all the brothers and sisters continued visiting the
cemetery on the days of their parents’ date of birth and date of death. Family
ties remained strong. The week in Tahoe continued until COVID, and they
continue to celebrate Chinese New Year’s Dinner. This year, they will have
dessert after dinner at Letty and Cliff’s house.
Letty passed away in her sleep, surrounded by loved ones on
January 4, 2025. For the days leading up to her passing, she was able to see
all her grandkids and her brothers. She
is preceded in death by her husband Clifford Wong, and is survived by son Brian
and wife Barbara Wong; daughter Karen and husband Geoff Yuen; and grandkids
Lindsay Yuen, Courtney Yuen, Brannon Wong, and Briley Wong.
There will be a family lunch in April (but no formal
services), and Letty will be laid to rest with Cliff at the Sacramento National
Cemetery in Dixon. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to either:
- First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco where Letty went to Kindergarten, practiced piano, taught Sunday School and married Cliff - 15 Waverly Place, San Francisco, CA 94108
- American
Stroke Association which is part of the American Heart Association through this
website
because Letty and her siblings were prone to high blood pressure and strokes.
