Given June 24, 2025 at St. Bridget's Chinese Catholic Church in Los Angeles.
On behalf of myself, Eric, Christina and the rest of our family I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us. Mary Anne Chan was born in Gim Gong village in Toishan, China. As you can see, the program indicates she was born on November 22, 1949. But that’s incorrect. Mary actually has three birth dates and November 22, 1949 is not the correct one, though it is the one we observed. What happened is that she was born on the 22nd day of the 11th month of the Chinese calendar for the Chinese year of the ox which began in the western calendar year 1949. But as you know the Chinese new year starts a few weeks after January 1. So about 10 years ago when applying Mary for Medicare I figured out that she was actually born on January 10, 1950. But those few weeks made a big difference as it made Mary a child of the 1950s instead of the 1940s. Oh, and the third birth date? Well for some reason when Mary’s family came to the United States her dad registered her birth date as November 22, 1950. We know where November 22 came from, while 1950 was the calendar year in which she was born. And that was a big deal, as Mary started school a year late and we had some splainin to do when Mary applied for Medicare.
Not only did Mary have three birth dates, but she also had three different names. In addition to Mary, she was known to many by her Chinese name Chelmoon. And the third one? Father Pong, you’ll like this. Before she was born her parents chose an English name for their upcoming baby. Given that they already had two daughters, they decided on the name Peter, hoping to increase their chances of getting a boy. Well that didn’t work out. Fortunately baby James came along a couple of years later and Mary could be Mary.
Mary moved to Hong Kong for a short while before coming to the United States. She didn’t remember much of her stay there, but she did have one distinct memory. She remembers being in a classroom and being reprimanded by her teacher in school. She responded by giving the teacher a swift kick. Like who do you think you are to scold me?
In 1955 the Chan family moved to the United States. At that time very few Chinese were able to migrate to the United States without already having family here because of the restrictive immigration laws but they were granted entry as refugees. Their destination was Chicago where fellow villagers had established themselves. But first they landed in San Francisco, which was cold and damp. Mary’s mother decided that if San Francisco was this unpleasant, she sure didn’t want to go to Chicago. So they detoured down Highway 101 and headed to Los Angeles.
They soon settled in Los Angeles in East Hollywood on Burns Ave. which became the family homestead for over 60 years. Mary attended Immaculate Heart of Mary elementary school for 8 years, then transferring to public school at King Junior High School for 9th grade, meaning she had graduations in back to back years. She then attended Marshall High School, UCLA and Cal State Los Angeles, becoming an elementary school teacher for 38 years. A strict teacher, she consistently turned rowdy little kids into obedient little soldiers, though her methods probably not be approved today. Mary was such an outstanding teacher that parents asked that their children be placed in her class. Mary was a certified bilingual teacher—in Spanish--and taught in Spanish for many years. She also stunned innumerable Spanish speaking gardeners and workers with her fluency in the language. Her students also loved her for being such a good teacher. I can’t tell you how many times we went out shopping and former students and parents would recognize her and warmly greet her, even in West Los Angeles.
Mary and I were married in 1980 technically making her Mary Chan Chan and saving her the trouble of getting a new driver’s license. This past Saturday would have been our 45th anniversary. We have two wonderful children, Eric and Christina and three lovable grandchildren, both chronologically and alphabetically, Eli, Jemma and Jordan.
Mary was an accomplished world traveler, having been to almost 60 countries, more than I’ve been to because sometimes she went without me. Mary visited New York City 25 times and indeed her favorite department store, Century 21 was located there. Mary was an excellent cook, but hated cooking because it was too time consuming because she had to get it just right. She was very knowledgeable about Chinese food and found it laughable that people would ask me about Chinese food. She also enjoyed dancing, sewing, watching movies, and in her retirement years, learning Mandarin Chinese.
Mary loved coming to St. Bridget Church because she always felt it was so welcoming. That being the case you might be wondering why you didn’t see her here more often over the years. Truthfully, she actually planned to come here most every Sunday. But quite often she didn’t get up in time and ended up down the hill from our house. And Mary was a champion slowpoke, so even when she got up in time, by the time she was ready it was already 11:15am. And when she did come that’s why you often saw her sitting in the back row.
In her retirement years, she also enjoyed what I referred to as her periodic gang meetings. Mary was a member of three gangs, a St. Bridget’s gang, a Lockwood Elementary School retired teachers gang, and her cousins gang, where they would go out periodically on weekdays for lunch, usually in the San Gabriel Valley. She was enjoying these get-togethers until just recently.
I met Mary in 1970 at UCLA. She was a freshman and I was finishing up my masters degree in accounting. That probably doesn’t make much sense to you since I’m only a year and a half older than Mary. But between Mary’s redshirt year before starting school and my skipping a year and a half of elementary school, I ended up four grades ahead of her.
Mary and I met at a meeting of the UCLA Chinese club. Again that might sound funny. I mean isn’t UCLA just one big Chinese club? Well maybe now, but not 55 years ago when there were relatively few Chinese students at UCLA. Back then there were only 20,000 Chinese in Los Angeles. Now it seems like there are 20,000 Chinese on the UCLA campus.
Mary went to the meeting because her mom told her to, as she wanted Mary to have Chinese friends. For me it was quite a different story. I had spent four undergraduate years at UCLA without having Chinese friends and not even noticing it. But in my very last quarter I took the first Asian American studies class ever offered. That was so long ago the name of the class was Orientals in America. Mary’s cousin Barbara was in the same class. Anyway I was so fascinated by the fact that Chinese Americans had their own history my entire outlook changed. So when I got a flyer inviting me to a meeting of the Chinese club I showed up. And there was Mary.
We really didn’t become good friends at UCLA because she transferred out of UCLA at the end of the school year. The highlight was probably our scheduled first date to go bowling at the UCLA bowling alley, which was cancelled when at 6am the 6.6 magnitude Sylmar earthquake hit and closed the campus. We did keep in contact for a little while after she left UCLA. But her mom severely restricted her telephone access. So for a while we corresponded with each other, exchanging cards, letters and the like. Once I made up a small book of recipes typing, stapling and sending it to her. Now mind you back then my idea of a recipe was to cook my noodles in a pot of Campbell soup. Of course it’s hard to keep up with someone via mail and we lost contact.
Fast forward to early 1978. What I subsequently learned being married to her was that a few years of radio silence never stopped Mary from looking up former friends and acquaintances. So one evening Mary’s going through some junk and sees the David Chan Campbell soup cookbook. Whatever happened to that crazy guy? She finds my old number and decides to dial—but if a woman answers she would hang up. Meanwhile I had just bought a house but hadn’t moved out. At home whenever the phone rang my mom always answered the phone. But when Mary calls and the phone rings, my dad is walking by the phone. So he picks it up and says it’s for me. Mary and I have a great conversation catching up and decide it’d be nice to get together again. But then I tell her it’s tax season and I’m working 7 days a week and I couldn’t see her for two months until April 16. Now if I were her I would have slammed the phone down. But she didn’t and the rest is history.
I think you can see what an improbable chain of events brought us together. But to me it shows that some things are just meant to be.
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