The Lee Family of Northern River Bank

By Venna Chee Wan Lee

In this magnificent family saga, Venna Chee Wan Lee brings to life the extraordinary story of four generations of Chinese ancestors. Her search for the family history, led to the family’s lost Zong Pu (clan histories), which spanned thirty-two generations and more than three thousand years This book is Author’s quest to preserve a lineage’s history for a western audience. The family history begins with an intimate personal portrait of her great-grandmother, a young widow and a devout Buddhist, whose Christian son married three wives, built a business and served as the patriarch of four families during a time of extreme cultural and political change. Lee vividly brings to life a colorful cast of relatives who lived through the turbulent years of recent Chinese history, as China evolved from a farming feudal system to a modern society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483440538

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LEE

Copyright © 2015 Venna Chee Wan Lee.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4052-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4051-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4053-8 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 11/05/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments

Who’s Who In The Family

Chinese History/ Family Events

Introduction

Chapter 1    Ancestral Home:

Ningbo

Chapter 2   The Third Household (三房):

Our Family

Chapter 3   The Legends:

God Of Wealth (財神)

Lee Family Of The Northern River Bank (江北岸李家)

Chapter 4   Our Family Temple:

Bing Hwa Tang (秉花堂)

Tracking Our Ancestors

Chapter 5   Family Burial Ground:

The Peach Garden (桃園)

Chapter 6   The Ancestral House:

#17 85 Alley Zhung Ma Lu ( 中馬路85弄17)

Chapter 7   Great-Grandmother :

A Tai (阿太)

Chapter 8   Grandfather

A Formidable Force

Chapter 9   Grandmother :

Our Anchor

Chapter 10   The Wedding:

What The Future Holds

Chapter 11   They Are Part Of The Lee Family

Adding Two More

Chapter 12   Own Business:

Grandfather’s Plan

Chapter 13   China Copper And Steel Factory (中國銅鐵厰):

The Early Days

Chapter 14   The Second Sino-Japanese War:

1937-1945

Chapter 15   China Copper And Steel Factory (中國銅鐵厰):

1945 And Beyond

Chapter 16   China Steel Works Limited (Hong Kong):

1947 And Onward

Chapter 17   Fortunes Be Told:

Wives, Sons, Wealth And Death

Chapter 18   Grandfather’s Wives:

Tao Lee Fan Fang (桃李芬芳)

Chapter 19   Grandfather’s Children:

Sons, Daughters And Godson

Chapter 20   Faith:

As For Me And My House, We Will Serve The Lord

Chapter 21   Close Relatives :

Xia, Wu, And Fu (夏家, 吳家, 傅家):

Chapter 22   The Other Branches Of The Lee Family:

Great-Grandfather’s Four Brothers And Two Sisters

Chapter 23   The Ultimate Gift:

Lee I Yao Memorial Secondary School

Epilogue

Notes

Chinese Kinship

Letter From Da Bai Bai Dated November 11, 2003

Ningbo, China

Cultural Revolution 1966-1976

Chinese Name

先祖象权公渊源探究（二稿） 浙江奉鄞江北岸李氏后裔 李亨标 编 2010.1

Bounded Feet

Guanyi Pusa (觀音菩薩)

History Of Shanghai

Three Obedience And Four Virtues (三从四德)

Crittall Windows, Ltd.

Chin Fook Li (晋福里)

Shanghai Government Office File (上海市地方志办公室)

Battle Of Shanghai (1937)

Chinese Fortune Telling

The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Hong Kong

The Gideon’s International

Freemasonry In Hong Kong

Bishop And Pastors With Whom Grandfather Worked

Shanghai Hairy Crab (大閘蟹)

Chinese Zodiac (中國生肖)

Letter From Fu Feng Kai 傅志强信

Bibliography

To My Dad and Mom with Love

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to my family members, especially my aunt, Li Yuen Chi, Da Bai Bai (大伯伯) (see Note1), my father’s elder sister, for sharing information and recounting stories of our family. During 2003, on my request Da Bai Bai mailed me recordings and letters (see Note 2) from Australia, where she live. Her letters propelled me on my wondrous journey through our family history. My only regret is both my aunts passed away before this book was ready to publish. They live in my heart, mind and in this book.

Along the way, my many cousins helped to research and provided me with information about our family. Special thank you to Wu Ru Jei Helen (吳汝潔) and Xu Jia Hua (徐嘉華), who reconnected me with my extended family in Shanghai, found once-lost photos, and gave prompt responses to my many questions. I was fortunate to have Cousin Ng Tzs Wai (吳子偉) who reminisced with me about our childhood. His vivid stories brightened and affirmed many of my own recollections.

I am indebted to Uncle Fu Feng Kai (傅豐恺, 志强叔叔) for supplying information on the Wu and Fu families and Auntie Fu Feng Yue (傅豐悦, 四妹嬢嬢) for preserving the old photos of our families. Last but not the least a big thank you to cousin Li Bo (李波), who I ‘met’ on the web, for generously providing a research paper of the Lee family genealogy written by her uncle, Li Heng Biao (李亨標).

My husband Benson for offering his love and understanding for many hours when I am unavailable to him while working on this book and looking after my parents, and for counseling and for bolstering my resolve when others belittled my undertaking. I feel blessed and thankful that we choose to walk the path of life together. My daughters, you are my inspirations! Vennette read my first draft and provided the first edit of my manuscript. Vanessa offered comments, suggestions, insight, and enthusiasm. You are now and forever everything that matters.

This book is dedicated to my dad and mom, without their encouragement and support I would not have written this book. Dad and Mom, it is you who made all things possible.

It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.

—Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

WHO’S WHO IN THE FAMILY

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CHINESE HISTORY/ FAMILY EVENTS

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INTRODUCTION

After my daughters went to college, I found myself in an empty-nest funk. One day as I was putzing around the house and flipping through old photo albums, it suddenly came to me that my daughters did not know many of their relatives. By contrast, when I was growing up in Shanghai, I saw all of my six aunties and uncles practically every week, and my ten cousins were my constant playmates. I also thought about the many strangers who visited my grandmother’s house during Chinese New Year, as a gesture of respect to her.

Growing up, I heard bits and pieces of stories about my family from my grandmother, aunties, housekeepers, and wet nurses, who gossiped as they cleaned vegetables, prepared food, knitted, and embroidered. I knew my family was an important one because people would come year after year to pay respects to my great-grandmother and grandmother. But who were those people? I was curious. We did not speak much about our family history during the early years of communism in China. We were taught to loathe our own family because we were a capitalist family, a family regarded as an adversary of the working class. This was further exacerbated by the fact our grandfather was living in Hong Kong, which at the time was considered an evil society.

I was fifty-four years old in 2003 and living in America. I started to think about recording our family history for my children. By then, my extended family had branched out all over the world. Some of my relatives had immigrated to Australia; others had moved to Hong Kong. Some, like me, resided in the United States, and some still lived in Shanghai. But we all shared the same blood line. Our family’s stories begged to be told. It was obvious to me that my generation was the only one that could connect the past with the future. Because I am a first-generation immigrant, my knowledge of Chinese, enable me to do research in Chinese and I still have relatives who remembered some family history.

I started gathering as much information as I could on my family in case I ever decided to tell its story. Unfortunately, I discovered there weren’t many family photos left. All of the pictures we kept at the homes of my grandmother, my parents, and my aunt Li Yuen Chi (Da Bai Bai) were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

I began interviewing my parents, my aunties and my cousins. But in 2006 my mom was diagnosed with cancer and had emergency surgery in New York City. Writing the family history felt like putting a final chapter to a story, so I put the project aside for a while. In 2011 my dad passed away, and I felt unhinged. My dad had been the most influential person in my life. I find myself conjuring up memories of him often. He lingers in me. Dad was generous, loving and courageous. He accomplished many extraordinary things in his lifetime, yet never needed an audience or even sought gratitude. As an eldest son Dad was taught to lead, for that he accepted even embraced many burdens of responsibility, found means to endure and prevail in the face of extreme threat and uncertainty. Dad loved his wife, his children and his family. I want to honor him, to tell him I have not given up. I want my children who carry on part of him to know my father and our family. I do not want him to disappear. I decided now was the time to write this story.

I want to make certain our family history is told truthfully. Some of the events may not be chronologically correct, and in some cases each participant remembered events differently, but I have done my best to record the story as fluidly as possible.

This book is about our family, our cultural legacy, our upbringing, the values that were passed on from generation to generation, giving us opportunities and making