Our Lew Ancestry
Great-Grandparents & Grandparents

[originally written by Alan]

Our dad’s father’s father (our dad's grandfather and one of our great-grandfathers) was Lew Han Won. He was also known as Lew Hay Won, Lau Hee Won, and Lau Ah Hay. Men in China often went by more than one name in those days (and sometimes still today). They could have a unique birth name, a generation name (one character shared by everyone in the same generation), and they could pick a new name when reaching adulthood. Chinese fortune tellers can tell a lot about a person from their Chinese name. (Note that the surname always comes before the given names in China. Also, Lew is the Toisan dialect, Lau is Cantonese, and Liu is Mandarin for the same Chinese name.)

Our great-grandfather was born on February 14, 1875, in Kei Mei village. Kei Mei literally means “flag tail” because it was and the end of a mountain slope that looks like the tail end of a Chinese triangular flag. He taught school in the small schoolhouse/temple in the village, which was close to the house he built and which we still own half of today. (The other half is owned by our Uncle Jason in Los Angeles). His father also taught in the same schoolhouse before him. 

Lew Han Won first came to the US by steamship in 1889. His father had not migrated to the US, but his wife's father had (probably in the 1870s). So, Lew Han Won came to the US as a paper son of his father-in-law. Unfortunately, he failed the immigration interview the first time he came. He spent several months on Angel Island and returned to China before trying again. 

He came to the US to earn more money, because it was difficult to raise two kids (our grandfather and our Uncle Bill) on a teacher's salary. Toisan was also in a very poor part of Guangdong Province, remote from the larger cities of Guangzhou and Hong Kong. For example, some families would give him a single bucket of rice for a year's tuition at his small school.

In addition to Lew Han Won's father-in-law, our dad's two great-grandfathers on his mother's side also crossed the Pacific on clipper (sailing) ships in the 1870s. An even older generation of ours might have come to California during the first gold rush (1850s) and the building of the transcontinental railroad (1860s).

His second attempt to come to the US was successful, though our dad is not sure when that was. The massive fire caused by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake burned all the immigration papers, and as a result, Lew Han Won bought new immigration papers that showed he was a US citizen born in the US. 

Based on what our dad said in a recording in March 1991, Lew Han Won apparently had a second family born in the US. Our grandfather, Lew Jun Dick, was born in China and his mother never left China. But his brother, Lau Jun Yok, was born in the US. So, he must have had a different mother. And, Lew Jun Yok had a brother he attended UC Berkely, but is not shown on the Lew Father's Side Family Tree. Lew Jun Yok was the paper father for our dad and is mentioned more in the section on Our Dad.

Lew Han Won Hall

Lew Han Won returned to build a house in Kei Mei village in the Lei-Au village area in Toisan (Taishan) County, Guangdong Province. Everyone in the Lei-Au villages (maybe 20 villages) have the surname Lew and are descendants of a single ancestor who migrated to the area in 1115 CE. Our ancestral records trace back to that relative and we are the 32nd generation from that ancestor.  

Kei Mei village is a small and remote village, far from the other Lei-Au villages. When Ronnie, Monika, and Alan visited there in 1987, we rode bicycles because cars could not reach the village. Our dad rode on the back of a motor scooter. Our dad paid for a small bridge north or the village to cross a creek to make bicycle access possible. Many years later, our Uncle Jason paid for a much larger bridge south of Kei Mei village, which enabled cars to get there. He also had a large marble sign built indicating his name and when he built the bridge. The last time Alan visited the village in 2017, we stopped at the bridge, but we could not see the sign because it was covered with vegetation.

As the eldest son, Alan owns half of our village house. Our Uncle Jason Yee in Los Angeles, who was our dad’s cousin, owns the other half. Each half contains a kitchen in the front part and a bedroom in the back. There is a large, shared hall space in between the two halves. 

Our great-grandfather's house was where people would gather when (or if?) the village was attacked by pirates and robbers. (Other villages had special tall towers for that. Mable's parent's village was so large they had two towers.) There were slots in the wall on the upper floor to shoot at robbers trying to break into doors.

Our dad added a facade to the top of of the roof with the words "Lew Han Won Hall" in both English and Chinese. In the main hall he had ceramic photos, tiles, and text in English and Chinese on two of the walls, for his father and for his grandfather. (Our Uncle Jason told me he wanted our dad to create a similar memorial to his father on the third wall, but that never happened.)

The last relative to live in our house was Lew Sai Woon (see the Lew Family Tree - Father's side). After he passed away, his second wife lived there. She gave Alan a copy of the deeds to the two halves of the house (which Uncle Jason had asked for) when Alan visited there in 2009. The two side halves got large holes in their roofs in a rainstorm in January 2018 and we decided not to repair them. 

The entire building will eventually collapse. Most people have left the villages for jobs in the cities and China's government would prefer to see most village abandoned and razed. 

Lew Hay Won had a vegetable farm in Hayward, CA. He died on August 21, 1934, when our dad was 11 and still in China. He had never met our dad. But one of our dad’s most memorable moments in China was when he was 9 years old and received a bicycle from the US, sent by his grandfather. Our great grandfather’s wife was Louie Jig Hong (surname Louie), who never left China.

Toisan

The Toisan people migrated to southern China in the 12th century (1100s) from Zhejiang Province (next to Shanghai) to escape the advancing Mongols (lead by Kublai Kahn). Zhejiang Province is known for its many dialects. The Toisan dialect today is a mix of Cantonese, Mandarin, and their own unique language. When I was an exhange student in Hong Kong I met a graduate student in linguistics from UC Berkeley. He was learning the Toisan dialect and told me it had 9 tones. That compares to Cantonese with 7 tones, and Mandarin with 4 tones. Even though I studied Cantonese and Mandarin, I could never understand Mable's (my wife's) mother who only spoke Toisan.

Despite the great wealth in China's eastern cities, much of rural China remains very poor and is the reason China is still considered a developing country.

Our Grandfather - Ping Wong

Our dad’s father (our grandfather) was Lew Jun Dick, Cantonese, Lew Hung Yi/Yee in Toisan. We (the grandkids) called him “Yeh-Yeh” or “Ah-Yeh”. He was born in Kei Mei village on November 23, 1898, following one of our great-grandfather’s visits back to China. Our Yeh-Yeh arrived in the US when he was 18 on June 1, 1916, on the Japanese steamship, the S.S. Tenyo Maru (our dad calls it the “Ten Yung Muru” in his notes.) Our grandfather came to the US to join his father, although he used the paper son name of Ping Wong. He had bought the "son" papers from someone named "Wong" in a neighboring village in Toisan. It was a "merchant son" paper, which meant his paper father was a business person and not a citizen of the US. Merchant son papers were cheaper, but had more restrictions than "native son" papers, which our dad bought later. 

So, “Wong” was his legal surname in the US. He also had "Dong Hon Wong" as an “alias” on his China passport. We do not know why he used a paper son name. There was an amnesty in the US around 1960 when he could have reverted to his real Chinese name, but he decided to keep Ping Wong because it was easier.

~~~

Alan Remembers 

I had lunch with our grandmother in her small room at 920 Clay Street one day in 1977 (after I returned from Hong Kong) when some young teenagers called asking for "Ping Wong". They had seen his name in the phone book and thought it would be funny to do a prank call, pretending to be an official looking for Ping Wong (who passed away May 1, 1976). I called them on their prank I told my grandmother what they were doing. She though it was funny and the next time they called she started talking to them in broken English and laughing away.

~~~

Our grandfather returned to Kei Mei village four times from the US. Here are the key dates and locations where he lived and worked in the US, and when he returned to China (according to our dad):

• June 1, 1916—Arrived in San Francisco, CA (Angel Island immigration center)

• 1916—1934: worked in different restaurants in Oakland, CA 

• 1916—1918: lived in a rooming house on Lincoln Ave, Alameda, CA

• 1918—1934: lived in a rooming house in the Oakland Chinatown at 8th & Webster St, except when he was in China

• In China:

  • • Nov 5, 1921—July 21, 1923 (left on S.S. President Lincoln; 8 months in China; this is when he married our grandmother; he returned to the US a month before our dad was born due to US immigration law)

    • Dec 4, 1928—Sept 1929 (returned on S.S. President Coolidge; 9 months in China; this is when our dad, who was 5, met our grandfather for the first time)

    • Sept 1934—July 11, 1936 (22 months; this is when he took his father’s body back to China; he moved our grandmother and dad to Hong Kong before returning to the US)

• 1936—1940: worked as a Gardener in Oakland, CA

• 1940—1941: worked at a restaurant attached to the Bonaza Bar on Market Street, San Francisco (our dad had told me that he owned the restaurant and it served American food, not Chinese food)

• 1946—1947: worked at Foster Laundry, San Francisco

• July 1936—1947: lived in a rooming house in Oakland Chinatown at 280 9Th Street

• In China: 

  • 1947—May 1949 (at least 18 months, if the dates are correct; elsewhere our date wrote these dates as 1949 to 1950 with no months shown)

• 1949—1960: worked at Foster Laundry, San Francisco

• May 1949—Oct 1954: moved to San Francisco Chinatown at 914 Clay Street (this Chinatown address is on his 1953 US citizenship certificate; although 912 Clay Street was written on one of his Social Security cards)

• November 17, 1954: our grandmother, Chew Fung Lin, arrives in US on S.S. President Wilson

• Oct 1954—July 1964: our grandparents moved to an apartment at 690 Fulton Street, San Francisco (this is where our grandparents lived when we would visit as kids; they might have owned the entire 6 apartment building)

• 1960: our grandfather retired at age 62

• July 1964—1974: our grandparents moved to 1325 ½ Q Street in Sacramento, CA; they moved into our old house when we moved to our new house on Tallac Street; but our dad traded that old house for another one in 1964; our grandparent either rented or bought the Q Street house when they lived there.

• 1974: our grandparents moved back to Chinatown to a rooming house at 920 Clay Street (unit #4) (which is shown on our grandmother’s US citizenship certificate); they moved after the City of Sacramento bought the Q Street house as part of an urban renewal project.

As mentioned above, our grandfather's US visa was based on a "merchant son" paper. One of the restrictions for that type of visa was that it only allowed our grandfather to leave the US for up to 1 year at a time. The boat would normally take one month each way. That is why our grandfather returned to the US a month before our dad was born on August 29, 1923.

Our grandfather brought our great-grandfather’s body back to China after he passed away in the US in 1934. They buried him in a grave on the north (left) side of our village. The last time Alan was there in Summer 2018, the graveyard was overgrown with thick vegetation. He could see none of the gravesites there. Our great-grandparent’s grave was cement, but most of the others were dirt mounds when he was there with our dad in 1987 and 1996.

According to our dad, when our grandfather returned to China in 1934, he had bought a house in Guangzhou (Canton) and had no plans to return to the US. But Lau Jun Yok (his brother, and our Uncle Bill's father) got angry at him for not returning to the US, so he hurried and packed up his bags and left for the US. But when he arrived in the US (July 11, 1936), he was past what his visa allowed. The US government locked him up on Angel Island for 3 months, while a lawyer was hired through the Lew Family Association in Chinatown to free him. (It might have been the Lung Gong Association, which includes the Lew, Gwan, Jeung, & Chew families.)  Because of World War II, his next trip to China was not until 1948.

Our grandfather's Republic of China passport (issued May 10, 1947) listed his occupation was "restauranteur". Our dad once told me that Yeh-Yeh owned an American (not Chinese) restaurant on Market Street. Elsewhere I saw he worked in a restaurant attached to the Bonaza Bar, but he might not have actually owned it. Alan remembers that Yeh-Yeh was a nice, but also a quiet man. He died of liver cancer on May 1, 1976, while Alan was away as an exchange student in Hong Kong.

~~~

Monika Remembers that our grandparents were living in a small rooming house apartment with a shared kitchen and bathroom in San Francisco’s Chinatown (920 Clay Street, #4). He had liver cancer, and they were trying to hide that because people on their floor would have been upset to know an ill person lived there.

They came and stayed with our parents in Sacramento when Ah-Yeh was too ill to stay at home. He stayed in a hospital in Sacramento and wanted to come home to die. But she doesn’t think our mom wanted him at our home. Also, there was no home health care or hospice back then. 

Our grandmother spent many hours reading the bible to our grandfather when he was ill in bed. She was a devout evangelical Christian (probably Baptist).

~~~

Our Grandmother

Our dad's great grandfathers on his mother's side (see Mother's side Family Tree) were surnamed Ngo (or Ng) and Chew. They were both from Sunwui County in China, which is adjacent to Toisan County. They came separately from China on sailing ships to the US, probably in the 1870s. They met in Houston where grandfather Ngo ran a Chinese gambling hall. and arranged to have two of their children, Ngo Shee and Chew (Jack) Ming, marry one another. Those were our Chinese grandmother's parents. (People in Sunwui County also speak the Toisan dialect of Chinese, which is also known as "say yup", or 4th dialect in Guangdong Province. Cantonese is "saam yup", or 3rd dialect.)

Chew (Jack) Ming spent some time in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where he worked as a tailor. Ngo Shee, his wife (our dad’s grandmother) lived in China and did not migrate with him. Our Dad knew her and his paternal grandmother well in China before he came to the US.

Our grandmother (our dad's mom) was Chew Fung Lin (surname Chew or Chu). We (the grandkids) called her “Unging” or "Ah-Nging" (some of us spell it different). She was born in Sunwui County (like her parents, above) on August 4, 1903. I remember our dad telling me that her actual birthdate is probably not that, but that appears on her passport. Our grandfather met her on his own (not pre-arranged) and married her on August 1, 1922, in the Presbyterian Church on Way Sun Street in Gung Yik City (Toisan County).

Their English marriage certificate (from the church) says she was 20 years old, but according to her passport birthdate, it would have been a few days before she turned 19. It also says he was 23, but he was 3 months short of 22. Part of the discrepancy is because in China, the tradition is to say a newborn child is 1-year-old, so they add 1 year to how we count age in the US. An additional discrepancy is likely because in those days, birth dates and ages in China were based on the Lunar Calendar, which is different year to year from the Solar Calendar used in the West. 

They were married one year before our dad was born in Gung Yik City, which is on a major river in Toisan County. Our dad grew up in that city, and not in Kei Mei village where his grandfather’s house is located. Our grandfather’s parents (Lew Han Won & Louie Jig Hong) were not happy that our grandfather found and married our grandmother. They wanted to arrange a wife for him, which is the traditional way.

Our grandmother worked in her uncle's dental office in Gung Yik City. In 1929, she started her own "modern dentistry" office. Our dad thinks she might have been the first female dentist in China. When Ronnie, Monika, and Alan visited Toisan in 1987, we went to the dentist office in the hospital in Dai Gong town (near our village) where one of our relatives (on on grandmother's side) worked. They had a dental chair with a drill that was operated by a foot pump! That relative eventually came to the US and set up an "unofficial" dental service in one of the rooming house rooms in Chinatown. (There is a photo of our dad with her that Alan will post when he finds it.)

In the 1950s, US immigration laws changed. Our grandfather became a US citizen on November 16, 1953, and our grandmother could then come to the US. She took the S.S. President Wilson (an American President Lines steamship) to the US, arriving on November 17, 1954. Although China came under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, they did not limit migration out of China until the late-1950s. Our grandmother became a US citizen on December 10, 1968. 

In the US

A month before our grandmother arrived in the US, our grandfather bought and moved into a 3-story apartment house (6 units) at 690 Fulton Street in San Francisco, near the Civic Center. They lived on the top floor. The City of San Franisco bought the house in 1964 and they moved to 1325 1/2 Q Street in Sacramento. Their Fulton Street house was replaced it with an "affordable housing community".

In Chinatown, our grandmother sewed clothes in a "sweat shop". We visited that shop a few times during our visits to San Francisco. Our grandmother was also a matchmaker in Chinatown and because of that, we attended a lot of Chinese weddings and wedding banquets there, even though our dad barely knew the couple. 

They lived in Sacramento for 10 years, moving to a rooming house in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1974. Our grandmother did not speak much English and so the Chinatown apartment was perfect for her following our grandfather’s death on May 1, 1976. Unging passed away in San Francisco on May 22, 1984.

~~~

Calvin Remembers: Unging had a canary in their house in downtown Sacramento that he remembers was very loud, and annoying. Ah-Yeh would usually be sitting on a rocking chair in the living room with sunglasses on. We would say "hi" to him and he would say "hi" back. But that was about all he would say. He was in his early 70s at that time but seemed much older.

Calvin also remembers our dad taking him San Francisco for Chinese New Year in the 7th, 8th and 9th grades (age 13-15 in 1974-76, when Alan was in Hong Kong). He was allowed to bring a friend. They would go visit Unging in her rooming house (920 Clay Street, #4) who would give Calvin a lei see (red wrap) with $20 in it. They would then take the Cable Car to Fisherman's Wharf for the day and come back to watch the Chinese New Year's Eve Parade in the evening.

Monika Remembers also going to San Francisco and getting lei see money from our grandmother, and then exploring Chinatown. She also fondly recalls Unging taking the kids to but "dai bau" (meaning "big buns", with chicken meat) and Chinese style roast duck. She recalls Ronnie, Calvin, and her going with our grandma into one of the Chinatown alleys (probably the Lew Family Association on Ross Alley). She would knock on the door and tell them her name (Lew) and they would let them in where she would join a mahjong game. The games were a form of low-stakes gambling, and she brought the 3 kids as good luck. 

Alan Remembers: I returned from Hong Kong in December 1976 and moved into a small studio apartment at 20 Joice Street, at the top of the Joice Street steps (at Pine Street), near Chinatown. Our dad and grandmother knew the landlord of that building. I lived there for 1 year while attending San Francisco City College. I would ride the cable car almost every day to and from Market Street where I would catch the K Streetcar to City College. 

I was the only grandchild who could speak Chinese and would see our grandmother often. She was a devout evangelical Christian and often tried to convert him to Christianity. She would tell me how Jesus once brought light to her house in China in the middle of the night to scare off a burglar trying to break in. That was in her village house in Sunwui before she met our grandfather.) They had no electricity, so it was a miracle. But I never understood how she knew it was Jesus and not some Chinese god or goddess who brought the light.

She might have guessed that I had an interest in meditation, which was popular at that time, and she would often tell me to not pray to cows. 

I also met her evangelical church friends in Hong Kong when he was an exchange student there. They called our grandmother a “sister” and they tried to convert me, as well. They also prayed for me, which I thought could not hurt.

Our dad told me he was not interested in our grandmother’s form of Christianity. After coming to the US, he looked at different forms of Christianity and settled on Catholicism. As he got older, he went to church less regularly, but still did so on Christmas, Easter, and occasionally on Sundays.

~~~