Lai Ziang was born in Hankow, Hupeh Province, China on 11 May 1897. In 1919 she was living with her mother and sister in Shanghai; her father was deceased. Her sister, Mrs. Joseph D. Jensen, was a widow with children whose Danish husband died about 1915.
On 6 February 1919 Lai Ziang married Charles Robert Snaith Bryant, a master licensed mariner, at the American Consul. He was 42 years old and she was 21. When they arrived in Seattle in April 1919 their marriage certificate was examined by Immigration officials and returned to them. It stated that Charles R. S. Bryant was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and they were united in marriage by Rev. G. A. Fitch, a duly ordained minister of the American Presbyterian Church.
Immigration also examined Mrs. Bryant’s passport, endorsed by J. B. Sawyer, Vice Consul at Shanghai; and a Declaration of Alien About to Depart for the United States, form 228. The items were approved and returned to Mr. Bryant. Bryant was asked why he was bringing his wife to the United States. He said it was to allow her to have his company and to give her an education. In both 1916 and 1917 he was absent nine months, “and she said that was no home life.”
The witnesses for her 1919 application were Neville Craig, U.S. Court for China, and Walter H. Meyers of Seattle, Washington. Her application was approved.
Their travels between 1919 and 1927 are not mentioned in the file. In 1927 Mr. and Mrs. Bryant arrived in San Francisco from Balboa, Panama Canal Zone. Mrs. Bryant was delayed because she did not have a Certificate of Identity. Bryant complained to Immigration Services in Seattle because they were not given the proper documents when she arrived in 1919. He said they were very embarrassed because their landing was delayed until the paperwork could be verified. [The file does not say how long the delay was but it could have been hours or days.]
The Bryants left Seattle again in 1931. A letter in the file says she was identified by photographs and her Certificate of Identity No. 58341. [They made sure they had the paperwork in order this time.] There is no more information in the file after 1931.
Category Archives: marriage certificate
Little Dancie Wong and her mother Ng Dancie Yet
Little Dancie Wong and her mother obtained an affidavit for the purpose of identification. They were applying to the U.S. Immigration authorities at Angel Island, California in 1933 for a Return Certificate, form 430, which would enable them to re-enter the U.S. after a trip to China.
Ng Dancie Yet, her husband, and several white witnesses were interrogated. Some of the information from the interrogation: Henry Wong, also known as H. Wong and Wong Ge Ye, was born in Gilroy, California on 22 Jan 1908. He and Ng Dancie Yet were married in Ft. Worth, Texas on 17 April 1925. He was a merchant at grocery and meat market called Wong Company in Rosedale, Mississippi.
One of their white witnesses was Dr. Charles W. Patterson, a practicing physician in Rosedale and a graduate of Tulane University. He delivered the Wongs’ three children: Pershing, born in 1926; Kellogg, born in 1928 and Little Dancie, born in 1931.
G. W. Heckert, the Immigration Inspector reviewed the Wongs’ marriage certificate and noted that it was recorded in the Ft. Worth, Texas 1925 marriage records, volume 58, page 242, number 59881. Heckert asked if they could keep the certificate in their permanent files. Ng Dancie Wong refused and the certificate was returned to her. She stated that she was born 18 January 1905 at Fort Worth, Texas.
[According to Heckert, they were trying to determine if H. Wong was Ng Dancie Yet’s first and only husband. They wanted to make sure she had not lost her U.S. citizenship by marriage to an alien ineligible to citizenship. ]
During Ng Dancie Wong’s interrogation she was asked if she was “an expectant mother.” She said that she was four or five months pregnant. Ng Dancie Yet was also known as Ng Yook Hong or Mrs. H. Wong.
Ng Dancie Yet provided Little Dancie’s birth certificate. It says the Little Dancie’s father was born in Getlow, California instead of Gilroy. Ng Dancie said that the doctor “put it down Getlow because it sounds like that when we pronounce it.”
More about Little Dancie next week…
Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files 