Tag Archives: Detroit

Chi Che Wan – Chinese biochemist and college professor

Form of Chinese Certificate, Return Certificate, Return Permit, Section 6 Student, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In April 1931, Wang Chi Che 王季茝 (Chi Che Wang) was applying for a Return Permit so she could attend the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Montreal, Canada. Wang Chi Che’s file contains a Form of Chinese Certificate from 1907 when she originally arrived in the U.S.as a Section 6 student. A photo was attached and the document was signed by M. P. Boyd, American Vice Consul General in Charge, Shanghai, China.

Black and white portrait of a woman with an elegant hairstyle, wearing a high-collared blouse. The image is enclosed in an oval border, with a small round object in the top left corner.
Wang Chi Che (Chi Che Wang), Chinese Exclusion Act case files, Record Group 85, National Archives-Seattle, Box 908, File 7032/1000.

Wang Chi Che had the documents she needed to enter Canada temporarily in 1931 but was applying for the documents she would need to reenter the United States after she attended the meeting. She planned to go by way of Detroit, Michigan.

In February, Thomas Thomas, District Director of Immigration in Cincinnati, wrote to the Immigration office in Seattle asking them to furnish a landing record of Miss Chi Che Wang. She arrived as a sixteen-year-old student on the SS Minnesota in August or September 1907. She had not left the country since she arrived.

The Seattle office sent a summary of the 6 March 1931, six-page interrogation of Chi Che Wang.:

  1. She was born in Soo Chow, China on 30 October 1891 and was admitted to the U.S. as a student in August 1907.
  2. Attended Walnut Hills Boarding School in Natick, Massachusetts to improve her English, then Wellesley College.
  3. Employed as head of the Department of Biochemistry at Michall Reese Hospital in Chicago from April 1920 to April 1930.
  4. Did biological research work at the Marine Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts
  5. Taught biochemistry in the Department of Home Economics at Chicago University.
  6. Since December 1939, employed as Senior Fellow, in charge of the Department of Metabolism of the Pediatric Research Foundation in Cincinnati, receiving a salary of $4,500 a year.
  7. Member of Honorary Scientific Society of Sigma Psi, American Chemical Society, American Society of Biological Chemists, Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine, and Institute of Medicine-Chicago section.
  8. Speaks English fluently and idiomatically.

Information in Chi Che Wang’s interrogation that was not included in the summary:
1. Living at 825 Locust Street in Cincinnati, Ohio.
2. Her sister, Chi Tsau Wang, a Theology student, was living at the International House in Berkeley, California.

After a review of Chi Che Wang’s documents in 1931, a Return Permit was issued to her.
A Reentry Permit was issued to her in 1939 with no additional paperwork.

For more information on Chi Che Wang go to:
Wikipedia
Wellesley College/Alumnae Corner/Chi Che Wang (1914)
AWIS (Association for Women in Science)
Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center

Thank you Andrew Sandfort-Marchese, for calling this file to my attention.

Yung Gung-Jork alias Harold Poe – Caucasian boy adopted by Chinese couple

adopted, adoption papers, Birth Certificate, Newspaper article, Photos over several years, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yung Gung-Jork (Harold Poe) Article, Chicago Daily Journal, 17 March 1921Yung Gung-Jork (Harold Poe) 1921

Chin Fong Wing and his wife Lill Wing adopted Howard Poe, a Caucasian boy, fifteen months old, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois in March 1921. They gave him the Chinese name of Yung Gung-Jork  翁公爵.  Howard’s biological mother, Josephine B. Poe of Buffalo, New York, gave her consent in writing. The file contains a newspaper article about the adoption and a photo of Harold from the 17 March 1921 issue of Chicago Daily Journal.

Also in the file are Harold Poe’s adoption papers and birth certificate. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on 18 December 1919 at 12 o’clock noon. His father was unknown; his mother was 19 years old; German/Chinese. Another document lists his grandfather as George H. Poe. His adoptive mother took him to China in February 1927. They lived in Hong Hen village, Meow Ben, Toy San, Canton, China and Yung attended school there. After his mother died in 1937, Yung applied to returned to Chicago to be with his father, a secretary at the On Leong Merchants’ Society. The file contains another Chicago Daily Times newspaper article from 4 May 1938, titled “Life of Wonder Awaits White Boy Reared in Heart of China,” and includes two photos of Yung Ging-Jork–when he left for China in 1927 and upon his return in 1938.

 

 

 

 

 

“Newspaper Articles & Photos of Yung Gung-Jork/Harold Poe,“ 1921, 1927, 1938, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Yung Gung Jork (al. Harold Poe) case file, Seattle Box 756, file 7030/10968.

Yung Ging-Jork was admitted at the Port of Seattle two days after his arrival on 2 May 1938.

 

Moy Mee Ting (Georgia Moy) – Chicago, Illinois

Birth Registration, family photo, Form 430, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Photo of Moy Mee Ting Family
“Photo of Mrs. Moy Chuck Poy (Woo Shee) and family,” 1940, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Moy Mee Ting (Georgia Moy) case file, Seattle Box 737, 7030/10320.

Back row: Tai You (servant girl), Moy Mee Ting (applicant)
Front Row: Moy Ngoon See, Woo Shee (mother), Moy Fang Dhl, Moy Mon Dle

Moy Mee Ting 梅美清 (Georgia Moy) and her bother Moy Fang Dhl 梅宏資 (Stanley Moy) were admitted to the U. S. at the Port of Seattle on 3 September 1937 as native born U. S. citizens. Georgia was 14 years old and Stanley was a year younger. They were joining their father, Moy Chuck Poy in Chicago, Illinois. Their native dialect was See Yip Sun Ning.

Moy Mee Ting Birth Cert 1923
Chicago, Illinois birth registration, Georgia Moy, 1923; Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Moy Mee Ting (Georgia Moy) case file, Seattle Box 737, 7030/10320.

The Moy family went to Sai How Gow Dee village, China in 1927 so the children could study Chinese. The children Georgia, Stanley, and Philip (Moy Mon Dle) were all born in Chicago. Their mother Woo Shee (maiden name: Woo Yin Po) stayed in China and their father returned to the U. S. about 1929. The children and their mother moved to Ng Gong market near Gow Dee village in about 1932 because there were many floods in their former village.

Moy Mee Ting’s paternal grandfather, Moy Fang Chung (marriage name: Moy Dip Nai), was living in Detroit in 1937.

Moy Mee Ting testified that Sai How Gow Dee village had over 100 houses and she attended the Sai How School. There were over 100 students and including about thirty or forty girls. There were no women teachers. In her interview she was asked about size of the village, the number of stores, the number of stories of various buildings, who lived where, where they got their household water, how their house was lighted, where everyone slept, the number of beds, who cut her hair, why her mother had a servant girl, and many more questions.

When they moved to Ng Gong market the children attended the gospel mission school called Jing Ock. They had women teachers at this school. Chairman Inspector J. H. Gee asked Mee Ting several questions about where her mother got the money to support them after her father returned to the U.S. and where she got the white gold wrist watch she was wearing. She replied that her father had been sending her mother money and her mother gave her the watch before she left for the U.S.

Their mother accompanied them to Hong Kong. They took a boat from Ng Gong market to Ow San market, a train to Bok Gai and a steamer to Hong Kong. Their mother said goodbye onboard and a man named Chin Deung Fun oversaw them on the trip to the U.S.

Mee Ting correctly identified photos of her father, Moy Poy, (SF file 20173/13-16) (Seattle file 10724/12-10) and her mother, Wu [Woo] Yin Po (SF file 20173/17-3) and her brothers. Six pages of testimony by her brother, Moy Fang Dhl, is included in her file. The next day Moy Mee Ting was recalled to the hearing. Three more pages of testimony are included in the file. The interviewers compared her answers to her brother’s and asked about discrepancies and included more in-depth questions. Mee Ting and Fang Dhl were both admonished for saying that they had a brother named Ngoon Jee. They admitted that there was no such brother and were cautioned not to say he was a brother. They provided a group photo of the family which did not include the “extra brother.”

The Immigration committee reviewed the parents’ files from 1917 and 1921 and the family’s files from when they left the country in 1927 and voluminous current testimony and unanimously approved the admittance of Moy Mee Ting and Moy Fang Dhl.

Moy Mee Ting Form 430 1927
“Form 430 Photo of Moy Mee Ting (Georgia Moy),” 1927, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Moy Mee Ting (Georgia Moy) case file, Seattle Box 737, 7030/10320.

 

Mrs. Charles Tigard’s Witness Statement for Mark T. Lee

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Mark T. Lee photo
“Lee Tong Wing, M143 photo” Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Lee Tong Wing (Mark T. Lee) file, Seattle, Box 468, Case 7030/1769.

Lee Tong Wing (Mark T. Lee) was the son of Lee Loy and Chuey June Ho of Tigard. Lee Loy was a well-known Chinese hop grower in Greenburg, Washington County, Oregon. Mrs. Charles Tigard a former neighbor of the Lees testified favorably for them. The Tigards had been living in their home for 55 years, her husband owned a grocery store, and the area was named after them. Mrs. Tigard identified photos of the Lee parents and several of their eight children, including Mark Lee. The Lee children went to school with the Tigard’s daughter. E. A. Dueber, Immigrant Inspector in Portland believed Mrs. Tigard to be reliable and trustworthy.
Lee Tong Wing’s American name was Mark Lee. He was born at Guild’s Lake, Portland on 8 December 1893 before birth certificates were required. He obtained a delayed certificate in 1931. Over the years the family lived in Guild’s Lake, Tigard, and Graham’s Ferry before settling in Portland in 1905. Mark Lee graduated from Portland Trade School in 1915. Mark Lee registered for the draft [for World War I] when the family was living on a farm between Butteville and Champoeg, Oregon.
He went back east several times and worked as a mechanic at Northway Motor and Manufacturing Company in Detroit and was a head waiter at several Chinese restaurants in Chicago. He returned to Portland in 1930. He was applying to leave the U.S. for his first trip to China.
Mark Lee’s parents and his sister, Yettai Lee Young, were interviewed. A family photo was shown to the interrogator but it is not included in the file. The information given by the three family members was compared and it all agreed.

Mark Lee’s father, Lee Loy, marriage name Lee Wun Ung, was 86 in 1931. He was born in Pok Gai Shan village, Sun Ning district, China and came to the U.S. in T.G. 11. He had only been back to China once. Mark Lee’s mother, Chuey June Ho was born in San Francisco about 1858. She and her husband married in Portland in 1879.
Mark Lee application was approved and he received his certificate of identity. By that time he was a restaurant manager in Portland. After he was approved he went to China, married, and returned to Portland alone, as was the tradition, and was admitted on 8 March 1932.

[Charles F. Tigard (1862-1942), for whom the town of Tigard (originally Tigardville), Oregon was named, operated its first store and post office and was later president of its First National Bank.]1

(1) Charles F. Tigard papers, 1888-1926, Finding Aid, 2012, Archives West, Orbis Cascade Alliance, (http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv52230 : accessed 23 December 2016.)