Frances Lee's Obituary

Memorial Service: Saturday, January 30, 2010, 1 p.m.

Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Westport, Connecticut

Donations in Frances’ memory may be made
to the American Cancer Society.

Frances Moy Lee died on December 6th, two days after her 101st birthday.

Born Frances Gum Moy, on December 4, 1908, in Providence, Rhode Island, she was the daughter of Pink Fun Moy — of San Francisco; New York City; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Providence and Newport, Rhode Island — and Fong She, his second wife. Frances graduated at the top of her class at Julia Richmond High School in 1926, and earned an Accounting degree with honors from New York University in 1930, as well as winning a New York State Regent’s Prize. She was of one of the few women of that era — certainly, one of the few Chinese-American women — to earn a college degree.

In 1930, she married Edward Wonkai Lee; they had three children: Georgia (deceased), of Greenwich, CT; Myron, of Incline Village, Nevada; and Patricia, of Bloomington, Indiana; and Hong Kong. Frances raised her family through the vicissitudes of the Depression and World War II, and survived the vagaries of life in the United States and China during the 30’s and 40’s; in China, she was secretary to the President of Lingnan University in Kwangchow (Guangzhou), and she served as a translator-interpreter in the U. S. Consulate in Hong Kong until she and her family were repatriated in 1942. In 1950, she and her husband opened the West Lake Chinese Restaurant in Westport, Connecticut, which they owned and managed for twenty-five years.

She is survived by her son and younger daughter, nine grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.