Wongs Of Riverside
The Family of Voy and Fay Wong - Riverside, CA
Po Po was an old-fashioned traditionalist. She liked boys because they would carry on the family name. Girls would marry out of the family. She left her 4 year old daughter, Fay, in the care of her mother-in-law when she immigrated to Canada to join her husband. She brought her nephew instead. When her mother-in-law asked how was she going to be able to manage raising a child, Po Po responded,
“She’ll either fly to the sky with the birds, or crawl on the ground with the snakes.”
Years later, her son Uncle Paul, told me that the nephew was not much help at all. But as fate would have it, he did save the family from carbon monoxide poisoning. The nephew came by one morning and noticed a gas smell when no one answered the door. He broke the door open, woke the family and helped them out of the house. They were not able to save the baby daughter, Helen, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
