Biography of Maria

Maria Yuen Yau Leung

October 15, 1915 – October 9, 2009

Maria Yuen Yau Leung was born during the Year of the Rabbit, on 12^th day of the 10^th month according to the Chinese Lunar calendar.  She was the 5^th of 18 daughters of her father, Siu Yu Yuen, and she had 10 brothers.  Educated at home and then at True Light School, a girls’ boarding school run by Presbyterian missionaries, she became a leader of her class.  Plain talking and outspoken when curious, she looked to paving new paths for others.  Civil unrest and mercenary armies did not dissuade her from leading her brothers and sisters into the city of Guangzhou to buy school supplies, shoes and uniforms before every semester. 

The loss of her mother at age 11 and her subsequent bout with scarlet fever left her almost a year behind her classmates, but she applied herself diligently and caught up with them before the year was over.  After two years at True Light, she went to Pooi To Middle School, a girls’ boarding school run by American Baptist Missionaries.  The first in her family to cut her long hair (queue), she did so to more realistically portray a man in a school play.  As pitcher, she led her school’s softball team to the China national championship.  Renowned for her prodigious appetite and discerning taste, she was frequently asked to try new dishes and foods sent by families to their daughters at school until she graduated in 1935.

Citing the several doctors that her older sisters had become, she defied her father’s wishes for her to become a doctor and chose to be a coach, eventually compromising slightly on teaching.  She entered Ling Nam University (now known as Chung San University) and completed her Bachelor’s degree as World War II was descending upon her world.  Her senior project was a history of public education in Hong Kong and it became an indispensible reference book for many years. 

She met Joseph Kin Hing Leung at the university, and each charmed the other.  They married in 1940 and he went to help engineer the the Burma-China road while she fled to Chongqing (Chungking) to teach.  While there, she helped many of her classmates find work and they all helped each other survive the war.  In 1942, she brought into this world Robert Wan Yue Leung.  Fleeing the Japanese forces with only the things they could carry, she and her sister relocated in search of a safe haven.  In 1945, Jack Wan Tien Leung was born in Kunming, and after 2 years of worry and invaluable help from friends, a diet was formulated that enabled Jack to digest his food properly and thrive. 

After building a life in Kunming, the family departed for Guangzhou (Canton) in 1948 to avoid the unrest and violence caused by the Communist takeover of political leadership in major parts of China.  The family became a Ling Nam University family, with the children enrolled in the pre-school, a position for her as a teacher in the elementary school, and a teaching position for him in engineering at the university.  A sister to Robert and Jack was born early in 1949, Angelia Siu Yau Leung, and at last a daughter could be raised, along with her two boys. 

With Communist sympathizers in the university, and not wanting to attract suspicion, Maria devised a plan whereby she would go abroad for a Master’s degree in education so that she could come back to China and be principal of a school.  Since a single man was not expected to raise three children, let alone a baby daughter, having the children moved to Hong Kong to be with their grandparents was considered natural, even obligatory.  This left Joseph alone, teaching at the university, so if he needed to flee, it was possible to do so, even in the middle of the night.

Maria went to the University of Oklahoma, based partly on the ability of a professor to secure her admission there.  She left in the summer of 1949, and was one of only two persons able to enjoy the ship and not suffer from sea sickness caused by the large waves from a nearby typhoon.  In Oklahoma, Maria experienced severe bigotry and racism, and before the semester was over, she was able to secure admission to Columbia University Teacher’s College.  At age 34, she travelled across the United States, alone and finally met her sister, Margaret, in New Jersey in time for Christmas. 

Maria completed her Master’s Degree in Education in record time and was back in Hong Kong in 1950.  With the new approaches to education she learned in New York, she became Pooi To’s dean in charge of curriculum and student life.  Every semester she memorized the photos and names of the incoming students so that she could address each student by name on the first day of school, whether to warn or praise the girls.  She was the first to bring audio visual aids to any school in Hong Kong, and counseled students who wished to study abroad. 

By all accounts, her life in Hong Kong was a very happy one, with daily trips to the beach, after work, with the children playing nearby, and evening parties and gatherings of friends after the children went to bed.  The limitations on their lives, under colonial rule, were subtle, and so, in an effort to provide the most options for their children, Maria and Joseph applied to immigrate to the United States.

Their application took months and then years to process and in frustration, Maria went to the Consulate office and with a directness not normally associated with Chinese ladies, she asked why it was taking so long for the background check to be completed.  Astounded, the Consular official replied that the F.B.I. was not sure why she left the U.S. in 1950, instead of taking advantage of the refugee status afforded by the government, and could she possibly have Communist sympathies?  She bluntly replied that she missed her family and needed to return to them, and after all, what kind of mother would she be if she left them in the care of their father for an indefinite, undetermined amount of time?  Besides, she elaborated, did they have her signature on any petition or other document promoting such ideology?  She was careful not to sign anything other than official university documents so she knew the answer already.  The background check completed, the family then began to prepare to relocate halfway around the world. 

The Consular Office requested another appointment, and perplexed at what seemed to be another delay, Maria & Joseph sat down and received very unusual news: they had been picked by a church in Riverside California to be sponsored.  The church, Grace United Methodist Church, had determined that the two fields in the community with the largest job vacancies were teaching and engineering, and they went through stacks of applications and still had a small pile of applications wherein one parent taught and the other was an engineer.  They had a special service, praying to God for guidance, and selected the application of Maria and Joseph.  Although they had not been through Riverside, nor met anyone from there, they thought, what is the harm in trying it out?  So they changed their plans and cast their lot with the small church in Riverside.

Although the church had arranged for trucks to meet the family in San Francisco, Maria had already made arrangements for the family belongings to be held at the YMCA so that they could rest and relax and visit relatives in the City by the Bay, before boarding a train to Los Angeles.  In Los Angeles, the trucks took them from the railroad station across 60 miles of Southern California’s small towns, farmland and dry scrub in the middle of November to an oasis of a small city, Riverside. 

To her, the city looked like a park, with all the trees and green grass in the yards.  When they arrived at their new home, she marveled at how the refrigerator was stocked with Chinese vegetables, the children’s desks had pencils and paper, and there was even a piano, which she loved. 

The family settled into Riverside and Maria became a stay-at-home mother to three fast-growing children.  Although she had prepared in Hong Kong for the day when she would have to cook all by herself, she was happy to see that there was at least one Chinese family to whom she could ask questions.  With a little time on her hands, she went about re-creating the dishes that had made her mouth water when she was young and that had entranced her father and father-in-law while in Hong Kong.  In the latter half of 1959, she discovered that she was pregnant again, and in 1960 Galen Wan Ming Leung was born.  Having a 6^th mouth to feed, Maria decided to open a small corner convenience store at age 45.  Three years later, she sold the store and managed to save enough for a down payment on a four-bedroom house.  The purchase of the house almost fell through until the church members heard of the family’s troubles and sat down with the real estate agent to discuss the inequity of discrimination. 

Maria gathered her recipes and tried them out with all her friends and family.  She soon taught Chinese cooking through the UC Riverside extension program and it became a hit, with three and then four different courses.  In 1969, when the beloved Grace United Methodist Church was suffering from a revenue shortfall, Maria decided to put on a dinner as a way of repaying, in some small way, the enormous opportunities the church had provided to her and her family.  She organized a 10-course meal; sold more than 200 tickets at $5 each, cooked all the food, and made sure the food was hot when it was served by volunteers who wanted to see how this was going to be done in the small church kitchen, with 4 small burners and one small oven.  She raised over $1,000 and the church still exists today.

Through the years, Maria and Joseph sponsored many families and students, providing wonderful food and a place to call home when it was difficult, if not impossible, to go back.  In 1970, Maria started teaching again, this time as a substitute in elementary schools.  In 1974 she became a special aide, teaching English as a Second Language to refugee children from Vietnam.  After the unexpected death of her husband in 1979, she started volunteering at the Riverside Community Hospital and continued to do so for more than 20 years, putting in more than 5,200 hours. 

She started painting because she wanted to do something creative, and continued to do so until her eyesight started failing.  She played Mah Jong and Bridge for decades, mostly for the pleasure it gave others and the insight she gained about others, although she loved the high-scoring hands.

She loved seeing new things, and enjoyed going to places she never thought she would or could get to go, especially with her friends and her relatives.  She marveled at the old unusual things and the new unique things, whether they were buildings, scenic vistas, or beautiful flowering plants.

She treasured her friends and was always happy to be part of family gatherings.  After a long and event-filled life, she became ill early in October but did not recover as she had done previously.  Late in the afternoon of October 9^th, she passed away peacefully, in her sleep, with family by her side. 

We will miss her, even as we know that she is still part of our lives.  We hope we learned our lessons well and that we have a chance to pass along her knowledge, wisdom and stories to others.

(Note: This is Galen's recollection of some of her stories and is subject to the usual problems of recall and memory lapses. )