Part Eight

LAST ISSUE: Earl Mah. second son of Mah Bon Quen. joined his brother Alex in buying the longrunning business of Rupert Bakery in the early 1940s. Earl - who became a city alderman and a respected businessman and community booster, and who was honoured by having the Aquatic Centre posthumously named for him in 1982 - ran Rupert Bakery until his death in 1981. Today it is managed by his daughter Pat.


Mah Chung Gee, or Edward Mah. was the first son of Mah Bon Quen. His son. Eugene. inherited the renowned family business of Sunrise Grocery, but also became a well-known Prince Rupert photographer.

Edward Mah visited China from Prince Rupert in 1921. where he married 18-year-old Gee Tuck Wah. Because of the exclusion of Chinese immigration, it was 1948 before she or their children could enter Canada. Edward Mah divided his time between Sunrise Grocery in Prince Rupert. and his family in Fei Gno. In 1940 he returned to China for six years, to be with his family during the war, and developed business interests there. “He had all sorts of business interests, son Eugene says, “raising pigs, running a distillery. During the war he also set up the security for the village.”

Eugene Mah was born in Fei Gno in 1936. and came to Canada in 1948 with his mother and two sisters. They were among the first Chinese to enter Canada after the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1941 “We came over on the President Cleveland, Mah remembers. ‘to San Francisco and up from there. I was quite young, but I always heard my mother say that as we were coming up the coast she saw all of these mountains and trees. and she wondered.how did her Eugene Mah husband and father-in-law come to such a place?’

Edward Mah went on to become an elder of the United Church, an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, and was a very well respected leader in the Chinese community. Son Eugene remembers that over the years many new immigrants and old friends came by to seek his father’s advice and help. One of the things that Eugene’s father took great pride in was getting to know all of his store’s customers. Daughter Nora fondly remembers an annual Christmas Eve event, when friends and customers were invited to the store. “They came to exchange Christmas greetings with my parents. I can still picture the office filled with people, laughing, sharing stories -people coming and going, then more people coming. They would always say to me that my mother made the best, the most succulent turkey sandwiches. My father, of course, beamed. I learned a lot just by sticking around and listening to the conversations.

After his arrival from China Eugene Mah entered Borden Street School. then moved over to the old Booth School. It was there that he found what was to become the passion of his life. ‘They had a display in the activity room at the old Booth School when I was in grade eight or nine.” he remembers. ‘They used to have the activity room downstairs, where the parents made homemade soup and sold it. and so on, and at one time they had a display of portraits by Karsh. They were big black-and-whites. 20” X 24’. or something like that, and they really got me interested in photography’

Not long afterward, a friend. Tommy Boulter. gave Eugene a Kodak 620 as a Christmas present. A cousin who had built up a darkroom lost interest in the hobby. and a few years after acquiring his first camera Eugene was able to buy the equipment. He gradually became more and more serious about photography. making photographs of school events.

Yet Eugene also inherited the responsibility for Sunrise Grocery. After his father’s retirement in 1965 Eugene took over the business, and ran it for 15 years. Photography was his first love. however, and he constantly tried to balance photography with running the business. He leased out the grocery store in 1980. when it became B&B Groceries. and devoted himself full-time to photography. He earned numerous honourable mentions for photographs that he submitted to the Pacific Northwest Competition in Seattle. He also took on local commercial assignments. and his fine portraits hang in many homes, businesses and. government buildings.


Meanwhile, Eugene had also started a family. In 1957 he visited Hong Kong and married wife dennie. They had four children. Alicia. Christine. Michael and Judy

In April 1987 Eugene closed his photography business and moved to Vancouver. Today, as a grandfather or ten, he shoots photographs mostly for his own satisfaction, and Concentrates more time on Tai Chi. This had long been a hobby of his, and it developed into a serious interest. In the late- 1970s he began teaching a small class in Prince Rupert. and when he went to Vancouver he started a non-profit club. Mah’s Tal Chi Club of Vancouver. to promote the health benefits of Tal Chi. Today it boasts 180-member’s and Mah can be found every day, rain or shine, teaching in Queen Elizabeth Park. He still has time for his first love of photography. however. as he and six other Vancouver area photographers launched the Cathay Photographic Society in 1991. which holds an annual salon display.




NEXT ISSUE: Although she grew up it Prince Rupert after her family’s arrival from China in the early 1950s as Amy Der. it was under her true name that Mah Bon Quen’s grand-daughter Der Hoi-Yin became one of Canada’s most respected journalists.