Tag Archives: Virginia

Elsie Chung Lyon – International Registered Nurse and Lecturer

Lecturer,, obituary, Permit to Reenter, Photographs, Ports on Entry, Registered Nurse,, Traveler, Wife of U.S. Citizen, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Elise Chung Lyon was born in Stawell, Australia, about one hundred forty miles from Melbourne. She first come to the United States in 1923 from China with her husband Bayard Lyon. They lived in Elkhorn, Wisconsin with their three children, Marguerite, Hugh, and David. Her brother Fred Mowfung Chung also lived in Elkhorn.
Elsie’s exempt status was “wife of citizen, admitted to U.S. prior to July 1, 1924.” She had reentry permits from 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, and 1934, each with her photograph attached. When she arrived in 1934, she was forty-seven years old. Her file does not have much personal information. Elsie’s 1929 Form 505, Certificate of Admission of Alien, lists her occupation as lecturer.

“Elise Chung Lyon Reentry Permit Photo,” 1932, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, Record Group 85, National Archives at Seattle, Elsie Chung Lyon (Mrs. Bayard Lyon), Box 879, File 7032/263.

Elsie’s file does record a confusing incident with immigration authorities upon her arrival in Seattle from China via Vancouver, B.C. on Saturday, 10 November 1928. She was returning from a three-month tour of China. Mrs. Lyon, a lecturer on international relations, and nine other Chinese passengers were threatened with being locked up by immigration authorities for the weekend. David Young, a representative of the Seattle Chinese consulate, managed to get Mrs. Lyon released to his custody as a matter of courtesy.

A 13 November 1928 newspaper article titled, “Chinese Wife of American is Held Here”1 is included in her file. The article quoted Elsie Chung Lyon, “I’m rather sorry now that I did not suffer myself to be locked up because I would be better able to understand the indignation my countrymen feel on entering this country.” She noted that her papers were in order and she had been admitted two times previously without a problem. She promised that she would take the matter up with Secretary Kellogg in Washington, D.C. [Frank Billings Kellogg served in the U.S. Senate and as U.S. Secretary of State.] The article or the 1928 forms in her file do not say exactly why Lyon was being held or what happened to the other Chinese passengers.

In September 1929, Mr. J. J. Forster, Steamship General Passenger Agent of Vancouver, British Columbia wrote a letter to Mr. Luther Weedin, Commissioner of the U.S. Department of labor in Seattle concerning a compliant of Mrs. Elsie Chung Lyon about the ports of entry for readmittance to the United States. Mrs. Lyon was complaining that she had not been told the requirements covering her entry. Forster explained:

1. All Chinese ports of entry are not advised when return permits are issued.
 2. The Vancouver office did not know where the permit was issued or which port she departed to China from.
3. Chinese with return permits are entitled to admission to the U.S. through any port designated as a port of admission for Chinese.

Rules of October 1, 1926, governing the admission of Chinese gives the following on Ports on Entry:
“No Chinese person, other than a Chinese diplomatic or consular officer, shall be permitted to enter the United States at any seaport other than at the ports of Port Townsend or Seattle, Wash.; Portland, Oreg.; San Francisco, San Pedro, or San Diego, Calif; New Orleans, La.; New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.; San Juan or Ponce, P.R.; and Honolulu, Hawaii.”

According to her file, Elsie Chung Lyon continued traveling without any problems. The last entry notes that she left from San Francisco on 19 October 1936. “See Imm. File 117/9/36.”

Other information not included in the file:
On 12 September 1947, Elsie Chung Lyon’s letter to The New York Times criticizing General Wedemeyer’s statement on China was published. Lyon had recently worked seventeen months with the Chinese Nationalist Army in China and thought she was more able than Wedemeyer to evaluate the miserable and dehumanizing condition of the Chinese people and their need for honest leadership. She did not want America to continue “to grant aid to the present tyrannical regime…”

Death Information and Obituary for Elsie Chung Lyon:
Elsie Chung Lyon, the daughter of Mow Fun Chung and Mow Fung Huishe of China, was born in Australia in 1887. She died at Fort Worth, Texas on 16 Dec 1963 at age 76 years.2
Elsie graduated as a registered nurse from London School of Nursing and Medical Administration in England and was a registered nurse at the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China. She served as a lieutenant colonel in the Nationalist Chinese Army during World War II. After her return to the U.S., she translated English language nursing texts into Chinese. Her translation of Midwifery for Nurses (Hu shi jie chan xu zhi ) by Henry Russell is listed in the National Institutes of Health library catalog.3
Elsie Chung Lyon became a U.S. citizen in 1947. She was survived by a son David in Missouri, a son Hugh in Virginia and a daughter, Mrs. Margaret McHarg of Bellevue, Washington.4

[This file is the combined effort of the Chinese Exclusion Act Indexing team at the National Archives at Seattle. Rhonda Farrer indexed the file. She was intrigued by the story and shared it with Joyce Liu. Joyce found the NYT’s article. They gave me a copy of their findings. From there I obtained Elsie’s death certificate and obituary and wrote it up for the blog. THN]

  1. Alice Elinor, “Chinese Wife of American is Held Here” Seattle Post Intelligencer, Seattle, WA, p3. ↩︎
  2. Elsie Chung Lyon, 16 Dec 1963, Texas Department of State Health Services; Austin Texas, USA; Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982, Ancestry.com ↩︎
  3. Henry Russell Andrews, Hu shi jie chan xu zhi [Midwifery for nurses], (Shanghai : Guang 1941), National Library of Medicine, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/101541743. ↩︎
  4. “Native of China: Pioneer in Nursing Dies Here,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas, 17 Dec 1963, p.32. Newspapers.com ↩︎

Wong Yook Yee in 1913 – Engineer Graduate from MIT in 1925

Letter, photo, Section 6 Student, U.S. Army, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Photo of Wong Yook Yee, consular number 21/1913,” 1913, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Wong Yook Yee case file, Seattle Box 73, file 32-3614.

In 1913 Wong Yook Yee 黃玉瑜 was a student applying for a Section 6 certificate to allow him to come to United States through Seattle, Washington. He was eleven years old, born in Chung Hen Lee village, Hoy Ping district, China. His father, Wong Lon Seong, died in China in 1910. His mother, Jew Shee, was living in their native village. He had a younger brother, Nook Nay, and two younger sisters, Chuey Cit and Fong Gay. Wong Yook Yee attended school in his village for five years before going to Hong Kong for two months to study English. He planned to attend Ng Lee school in Oakland, California. His cousin, Ngong Suey, a merchant at Kwong Yuen Co. in Hong Kong, would be paying his expenses. Ngong gave Miss Ida K. Greenlee five hundred dollars in gold to cover the cost of school expenditures. Wong’s local contact was Know Ong Sow, a merchant at Chung Lung Co. in San Francisco. Wong was cautioned that if he did any manual labor during his stay in the United States he could be returned to China. Wong was admitted and started attending school at Pierpont School in Boston, Massachusetts. [change of schools explained in 1929 testimony] He was directed to confirm his school attendance to Mr. Monroe at the Seattle Immigration office via a post card signed by his teacher every three months.

Wong wrote to Mr. Monroe at Seattle Immigration and asked him to help get his Certificate of Identity. He adopted the Christian name of Perry Wong.



In 1929 Wong Yook Yee applied for a return certificate as a laborer. He was 29 years old and a draftsman in Boston. He married Lee Sue Doy (Boston file No. 2500/7819) on 11 March 1929 in Boston. During his interview there was some confusion about the place Wong was born. His family moved when he was three years old.
Wong testified that after he arrived in Seattle in 1913 he went to Ng Lee School in Oakland for six months then about six months in San Francisco before moving to Boston to attend Quincy School until 1917. He went to Northeastern Preparatory School for one years, then served one year in the U.S. Army at Camp Eustis in Virginia. He worked at an architectural firm and attended Tufts College in structural engineering, then Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he graduated in 1925. He then went back to work at Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott (called Coolidge & Shattuck when he worked for them previously)

In March 1929 Wong Yook Yee was granted his laborer’s return certificate. There is no more information in his file.

Alex Jay’s maternal step-grandfather was  Wong Yook Yee.  Alex has a blog, Chinese American Eyes about visual and performing artists. It includes links about Wong.

Some of the other articles about Yook Yee Wong on Alex Jay’s blog are:
Y.Y. Wong and S. Howard Jee’s Entry in the Capital Plan for Nanjing, China

Yook Yee Wong in the Journal of the Lingnan Engineering Association

Yook Yee Wong and Sun Yat-sen University

Yook Yee Wong’s / Huang Yu-yu’s Daughters Visit China 黄瑜瑜的女儿们访问中国

Other links provided by Alex Jay:
China Comes to MIT Bringing “Tech” to China
Early Chinese MIT: Wong Yook Yee

Henry White (Lim Kok Heng)– Becomes citizen through Private Law

Alien Registration Act of 1940, Citizenship through Private Law, Immigration Act of 1965, Seattle Times, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Henry White, alias Lim Kok Heng, became a naturalized citizen effective 25 August 1942, the date he arrived in New York City on the exchange ship MS Gripsholm. Private law 380 of the 78th Congress was approved by the President on 27 September 1944 to allow him to be naturalized.  The Secretary of State was instructed to have “the proper quota-control officer to deduct one number from the quota for the Chinese of the first year that the said quota is available.” “Henry White (Lim Kok Heng) was paroled to the custody of Mr. Kenneth M. White upon posting a public charge and departure bond in the amount of $500.”

“Private Law 380, Henry White (Lim Kok Heng),” 1944, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, White Henry case file, Seattle Box 827, file 7030/13659.

[This was significant because after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, the quota of Chinese entering the United States was 105. This extremely restrictive quota was in place until the Immigration Act of 1965.]

Henry White was originally excluded from entering the United States; his case was appealed, then he was paroled to the custody of Kenneth Matchitt White, his adoptive father, who posted a bond of $500. His Ellis island file was #174/405.

The file includes a copy of a 20 October 1943 Seattle Times newspaper article, titled “Chinese Orphan is Permitted to Stay.” Kenneth Matchitt White of Portland, Oregon found Henry, age 9, in a bar in Singapore in 1935. White placed the boy in a Chinese school, but Henry was interned when the Japanese captured Hong Kong.

Louis C. Hafferman, Immigrant Inspector investigated the case. He found that Lim Kok Heng (Henry White) was born in Singapore, Straits Settlement on 2 April 1926.

The father of Kenneth M. White, F. Manson White, was interviewed. He stated that he was born in Derby, England in 1868 and arrived in the United States in 1875. He had been living in Portland since 1888 and was a naturalized citizen. He was employed by the Portland School District as an architect with a salary of $3,000 per year. He had four children: Dr. Randall White, a Portland physician; Frederick M. White, editor on the Oregonian newspaper; Kenneth M. White, the adoptive father; and Katherine White, a former schoolteacher working in the defense industry in Los Angeles. Kenneth owned a farm in Springfield, Oregon a few years before becoming an electrician and currently he was a chief refrigeration engineer in the U.S. Army Transport Service. F. Manson White learned from his son that Lim Kok Heng was sold into slavery as a baby and mistreated. Kenneth felt sorry for him. Because Kenneth thought Lim Kok Heng was intelligent, he wanted him to receive a good education. Eventually Kenneth went through the adoption process. After Lim arrived in New York he was paroled under bond and went to live in Los Angeles with Kenneth’s sister, Katherine. The father, F. Manson White, stated that his assets were worth $10,000 in 1943 and that before the depression they were worth about $150,000. If anything happened to Kenneth, Manson would have the means to support Lim Kok Heng (Henry White).

Kenneth’s brother, Dr. Randall F. White, testified that he had been the Multnomah County physician for two years. He was not interested in Lim Kok Heng and would not want to accept any responsibility for him. Randall had only seen his brother three times in the last four years. As far as he knew the adoption papers were drawn up in Portland after Kenneth returned from the south Pacific war zone. Randall believed that his brother was mentally stable; a generous person who was fond of the subject and wanted to see that he was properly educated. Kenneth M. White sent Lim to Diocesan Boys School at Hong Kong. After the city was captured by the Japanese, Lim was interned. Other internees were Walter F. Frese, of Arlington, Virginia; John N. Raymond, of San Francisco, California; and M. B. King, of Salem, Ohio. Lim Kok Heng was taken aboard the Asama Maru and transferred to the MS Gripsholm with a group of American internees returning to the U.S. In 1943 Lim Kok Heng registered under the Alien Registration Act of 1940.

In a letter to the New York City Immigration Service from Kenneth White’s lawyer, Simon Hauser, he mentioned that White’s aunt, Mrs. Grace Calkins, the widow of a Rear Admiral, was willing to care for the boy at her home in Berkeley, California. Kenneth’s job required him to be at sea most of the time. Henry (Lim Kok Heng) completed most of his elementary school subjects in a year and a half in Hong Kong and was due to graduate from Virgil Junior High School with the highest possible grades in all his studies. He spoke English and “perfect Malayan and his services have been offered to Mr. Davis of the Office of War Information and to the CBS monitor station in San Francisco.”

Private bills S.1103 and H.R. 2707 were introduced by Senator McNary and Representative Angell.

There is no additional information and no photo in the file.

 

Woo Sing Family Portait – Registering Proof of Birth in Richmond, VA

Affidavit, Group Photo, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chas Wm Sing 1898 Fam photo sm 1070_8787_13 8
“Woo Sing family portrait,” 1898, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Charles William Sing file, Seattle, Box 1070, Case 8787/3-8.

This photo was taken in Richmond, Virginia about 1898 of the Woo Sing, his wife Sue King, their son Charles William, and their daughter.
Charles William Sing, born 16 November 1895, was said to be the first Chinese baby born in Richmond, Virginia. [In 1908, the Acting Chinese Inspector stated that the Department of Health did not records birth in the City of Richmond during the years 1888 to 1900.] Woo Sing, knowing that his son nativity might be questioned in future years and his rights under the Constitution may be endangered, had several affidavits recorded in Chancery Court. Woo Sing stated that he was born in China and came to the United States in 1875 at the age of nine, married Sue King, of Chinese descent, but born in San Francisco. They were married there according to the laws of the State of California. They moved to Richmond about 1894 and lived at 2 South 7th Street. He set down the date of his son birth in Chinese and that statement was attached to the affidavits of the attending midwife and two persons who knew him personally. His affidavit was signed 28 April 1898. He paid $1.75 in filing fees. Minetree Folkes, a Notary Public for the City of Richmond, certified Woo Sing’s document.
Walter Christian, Clerk of the Hustings Court of the City of Richmond, certified Folkes’ qualifications.
Caroline Claton, a colored woman, swore in an affidavit that she was a midwife, resided at No. 4 Jackson Street, Richmond, and that on 16 November 1895; she attended to Woo Sing’s wife in the birth of a male child afterwards called Charles William.
Jefferson Wallace swore that he had his linen washed at the laundry of Woo Sing, sometimes called Hop Sing, He knew Woo Sing four or five years, knew that his wife bore a male child in the autumn of 1895 and the child was named Charles William Sing.
Bettie T. Hayes, residing at 817 Floyd Avenue, Richmond, swore the Woo Sing was her tenant and that she has no doubts about the time and place of the birth of Charles William Sing and that his mother brought him to her house on numerous occasions.
These statements were admitted to record on 8 August 1899 by Charles O. Saville, Clerk of the Court of Chancery. The documents were recorded in Deed Book 166 “B”, page 63.
In early September 1908, Woo Sing’s attorney asked the immigration authorities to do a pre-investigation on Charles William Sing to assure that he would not have any problems re-entering the United States. John H. Sargent, Inspector in Charge, in Seattle, complied. On 25 September 1908 John C. Williams, Acting Chinese Inspector, Norfolk, Virginia reported that he had done a thorough check of records and reported that “all the evidence produced and the people interviewed would seem to indicate that there is no doubt of the birth of a Chinese child at #2 So. 7th St., Richmond, Va. about the time set forth in the father’s affidavit.”
On 19 April 1911 Woo Sing, also know at Woo Yip, testified that he was 46 years old, a cook, and living at 655 West Highland Drive, Seattle. His wife and son and daughter were living in China. His statement was in reference to his son, Charles William Sing, coming to Seattle to live with him. Charles, age 16, arrived in Seattle on 15 April 1911 and was admitted. He went back to China in 1913 and 1927 for visits. The final document in his file shows that he was re-admitted on 23 April 1928. He was married. His married name was Woo Gong Jim; his Chinese name was Woo Gong Foon. He had seven children—four sons and three daughters, age 8 to 2. The oldest was born in China and he was staying in Seattle. The others, all born at 1023 King Street, Seattle were going back to China to attend school and return later. He had birth certificates for the children born in Seattle.
Other information not included in the file obtained from Library of Virginia :
The Richmond Dispatch, a Richmond, Virginia newspaper published an article, “Woo Sing Has a Son. He paid $1.75 Yesterday to Certify to this Fact. An [sic] Unique Paper Filed in Court” on 9 August 1899.
[There must have been a problem with Charles William Woo’s return in 1908 because these articles were in the local Richmond, Virginia newspapers.]
“Richmond-Born Chinaman is Denied Re-Admission,” The Richmond Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia 24 September 1908, p.10, col 1.
“American Chinaman Barred,” Appomattox and Buckingham Times, Volume 16, Number 48, 30 September 1908, p7, col. 2.