the Louie Family History
Fawn Sam Louie was born March 15, 1898, in Guangdong province, China. He arrived in San Francisco on the steamship Manchuria. His entry papers into the US on June 6, 1913, describe him as being born in the village of Mon Lun (in 1955, Louie records this as Moon Lem), in the district of Sun Ling. He entered as the son of a treaty merchant, and travelled with his father, King Louie, first to Los Angeles, and then to Tonopah, Nevada, where his father had a business.
Shirlaine Kee Baldwin, Louie’s step niece, in a 2006 interview with researchers at the University of Idaho, remembered some stories about the Tonopah days. Immigration officials had reversed his father’s name to “Louie King”, a common occurrence for Chinese immigrants. Louie raised hogs in Tonopah and eventually ran a restaurant. Ah Cum Kee, a widow who cooked in Louie’s restaurant, became a long-term love of Louie King, the two having a child together in 1916, Nellie. Baldwin remembered hearing that Fawn Louie first learned his English letters from Ah Cum Kee’s daughters, and enrolled in third grade in Tonopah. He eventually completed high school after he and King Louie relocated to Reno.
In March of 1922, Fawn Louie returned to China. He seems to have returned to marry; arranged marriages at home were common occurrences for transnational Chinese men. The only mention of this marriage we have found is in the Senate Record in 1954. This summary, presented in support of Bill S. 60, granting him permanent residency, mentions that Louie had been married in China and had a daughter, both wife and daughter died in 1927 in China, after he had returned to the US to receive a college education. Due to the Exclusion Laws, bringing his wife to the US was not an option.
Sources:
Louie re-entered the US on January 12, 1924, on the steamship Taiyomaru and attended the University of Nevada. The 1925 Reno City directory finds him living at 448 Lake Street with his father King Louie, and working as the manager of State Live Poultry Market. It seems likely that the State Live Poultry Market was Louie’s business venture, he is the only person whose name appears in association with it. The business doesn’t appear in the 1923 city directory and isn’t advertised until mid-year 1924. With a wife and child to support in China, having funds to send to China would have been important. In November of 1926, the Tong Sung Company of Sacramento announced that they had purchased the State Live Poultry Company. In the 1926 Reno City Directory, Fawn Louie is listed as living at 125 East Plaza (a property he is later listed as owning), his only job being a student. Presumably selling the business underwrote buying the house, paying school bills and sending money back home. Baldwin recalled Louie stating he had been self-supporting through school, but thought that King Louie had also provided support. As in all family stories, the truth is probably more complicated than either narrative.
While a chemical engineering student at Nevada, Louie also was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, the Agricultural Club, the Commerce Club and the Chemistry club. One has to wonder how lonely an experience University of Nevada was for a Chinese immigrant, yet Louie was engaged in multiple social groups on campus, clearly not shy about putting himself into social situations. In his later business life, his ability to cultivate and maintain connections with people was an invaluable skill.
Louie graduated in 1928 and then moved to New York to pursue a graduate degree in chemical engineering from Columbia University. Columbia was a great contrast to Nevada–situated in a city with one of the largest Chinese American populations in the US and home to a politically engaged Chinese Diasporic student community. It was at Columbia where he would cross paths for the first time with a Chinese American woman from Hawaii–Wai Sue Chun–the woman who would become his second wife. The two did not date while at Columbia, but her later memories recalled Louie as “tall and handsome young man, a graduate student in chemical and metallurgical engineering, a member of Alpha Lambda fraternity.”
The 1930 census finds Louie living at 125 East Plaza in a house he is described as owning. He is described as a widower with property valued at $5000 and no occupation. According to congressional records, in 1930 he returned to China, with the intention to settle there permanently. Presumably he stopped in Reno on his way back to settle affairs and visit with family.
In China, Louie accepted a position with the Chinese Nationalist Government at an arsenal in Mukden Manchuria [SR 891]. He was forced to leave the arsenal due to the Japanese invasion in late 1931 [Zee et al. 2002]. Louie was probably impacted by the September 18, 1931, Mukden Incident—also called the Manchurian incident. This event was staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The seizure of Mudken (now Shenyang, Liaoning Province) was undertaken after a false flag operation by the Japanese involving a small dynamite explosion on the Japanese controlled south Manchurian railway. Though the railway was unharmed, the Japanese blamed the incident on Chinese dissidents and retaliated for the “Chinese attack” by attacking Chinese garrison the next day. On Sept 21, Japanese reinforcements arrived from Korea and the army expanded through northern Manchuria. Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered non resistance and took the dispute to the League of Nations which found Japan the aggressor. Still, the Japanese did not vacate until 1945.
Louie visited an Alpha Lambda brother in Peking 1931 and was told by his friends’ wife that their classmate Wai Sue Chung had taken a job teaching Home Economics at Hubei Normal College in Tientsin. The friend’s wife was also Chinese Hawaiian and from Honolulu, like Wai Sue. It’s hard to not imagine some matchmaking wasn’t in the air. [Zee et al 2002]. Wai Sue’s biography by her family states that Louie went to rekindle the acquaintance and describes the pair as having “become very good friends. He told her that they would make a very good team.” Wai Sue apparently agreed, and the pair did something very emblematic of new China–they formed a love match. They were married at the end of the school year on July 15th in 1932 in Hong Kong. Wai Sue’s brother Calvin, also then living in China, came from Yenching for the wedding. [Zee et al. 2002].
By late 1931, Louie had started a metal pressing business in Hong Kong, manufacturing enamelware (Zee 2002). The couple’s first child, a daughter, was born in Hong Kong in April of 1933. From 1934-1946, senate records describe Louie as having worked as Chemical Engineer for Chinese Nationalist Government [SR 891]. The memoir honoring Wai Sue provides further details: “In 1934 the Yunnan Provincial Government in Kunming invited Fawn to set up new factories and an industrial laboratory. He had the responsibility of searching for raw materials, particularly mineral resources. He spent three months in Tibet prospecting for alluvial gold deposits, traveling on horseback. Upon his return, Wai Sue helped to type his entire report.” (Zee et al. 2002). Louie found himself involved in the politics of war shortages and production. “China was at war with Japan but was unable to finance the purchase of modern military arsenal from abroad. It had to barter its mineral products such as tin and tungsten ores for military equipment. Fawn was given the task of smelting the tin ore into 20lb ingots in Kuochu, Yunnan.” (Zee et al. 2002).
In June of 1934 and September of 1935, two more children were born, a daughter and a son.
War continued to shape the family’s experiences in profound ways. In 1938, the intensity of Japanese bombing in Yunnan led Wai Sue to take the three children back to Honolulu for safety.. Louie stayed alone in Yunnan until the family returned to Yunnan province in 1940, with the family moving into a fortified house with tall walls and an interior garden (Zee et al. 2002)
In December of 1941, Wai Sue’s family was affected by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Honolulu was no longer a place safe from war. Tragedy continued with Fawn’s factory being bombed and destroyed during war, with many workers killed or maimed. The memoir in honor of Wai Sue noted, “it was the first time that his children had witnessed their father’s bitter tears” (Zee 2002 et al. 15). Still, in the midst of sorrow, another child was born, a son, in June of 1942, while the family was living in Kunming, in Yunnan province [SR 891].
After the bombing of the factory, the government in Chungking sent Fawn to Babo in Guagxi to build a new smelting factory. The family moved to Gullin, a fantasy landscape of water and chiseled mountains. With the children enrolled in school and Louie working, it seemed an ideal place. Yet, in 1944 the Japanese approached the city and the family only managed to escape on the last train (Zee et al 2002). Still trying to build a life in China, a place that the couple had invested hopes and dreams for a democratic future, “Fawn joined the faculty of Guangzi University to teach engineering. Faculty and students were evacuated en masse in boats, the destination was a small village in Guizhou (zee et al 2002). It was there, in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, that the family was living when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. The family decided to return to Canton, where King Louie was now living. King Louie had continued moving back and forth between China and the US until he was caught trying to enter on papers that weren’t his, and was deported (Baldwin 2006). In the family memoir, it is recalled, ”Grandfather Louie owned a five story building in Canton. He lived on the top floor and climbed those stairs daily to reach his apartment. He gave Fawn’s family the second floor for living quarters and made everyone feel welcome. Fawn set up an import-export business on the first floor” [zee et al. 2002:15). While the Wai Sue memoir gently avoids the subject, according to Baldwin, the other floors of the building housed King Louie’s other wives. He was decidedly a man of “Old China”, a circumstance that led Ah Cum Kee, his love in Nevada, to ultimately leave him.
Just as Louie had decided to move out of his father’s home in Nevada, the living arrangements in Canton were not to last. In 1946 the family moved to Hong Kong, where Louie first set up F.S. Louie and Company, with offices in Canton and Hong Kong. Being realistic about the rapidly disintegrating political situation in China, in 1947 he also set up an office in San Francisco.
Louie developed the business to design machinery and import machinery and chemicals for use in China [SR 891]. Wai Sue ran the business when her husband was in California (Zee et al. 2002:16)
In February of 1947, the Louies welcomed their last child, a daughter. Paperwork shows that the Louies reported their children’s births to the US consulate, and were able to ensure US citizenship for four of them that way. The family was pragmatic and realized they might need other options. In September of 1947 they acted upon that option, returning to Hawaii, and then moving to Berkeley so the children could easily attend the University of California. Wai Sue and four of the children were US citizens. Louie and one of the children were not. Louie navigated between visitor passports, extensions, and careful travel back and forth until the Korean war and the Communist take over of China made it impossible for him to continue to import goods between China and the US. [SR 891]
In his 1952 application for residency, Louie reported his income at about $13,000; “I have established myself in business as importers and distributors at 2423 Fourth Street Berkeley 10 California, I expect to enlarge my field of operations as soon as I know I may become a permanent resident of the United States.” [SR 891] In Jan. 1954, when his case was heard in congress and residency granted, Louie stated he was engaged in the import of porcelain ware from Japan only, he and his wife being the sole owners of the Berkeley business. He valued business property and stock on hand at between $30-35,000. With $5000 in a bank account. [SR 891]
Baldwin, Shirlaine Kee. Jan. 2006. Additional Notes on FS Louie, interview on file, Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho.
Chung, May Lee and Dorothy Jim Luke. 2002. Chinese Women Pioneers in Hawaii. “Wai Sue Chun (Mrs. Fawn Sum Louie)” written by Maimie Louie (Mrs. Frank) Zee, Claremont, CA; Fawn S. Louie, Oakland, Mrs. Bock Leung (Juana) Dong, Los Altos Hills, CA; Dr. Sherwin Louie, Oakland, CA’ Steven Louie, Albany, CA’ and Mrs. Daniel (Lorraine) Lee, Berkeley. Pp. 12-17. [Zee et al. 2002]
“Fawn S. Louie”, 1954. Senate Report No. 891, 83rd Congress, 2d Session, February 1, legislative day January 22nd, 1954. Report Submitted by Mr. Lander, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to accompany S. 60. [SR 891]
Artemisia (year book of the University Of Nevada, 1928).published by associated students of u of n