The period from 1910 to 1941 was marked by transition and change, as Yee Chung's family moved from Madera to other areas of California. The family first moved to San Francisco, where they struggled to adapt and survive before settling in the farming region of the Sacramento Delta.

With the inheritance from her husband's orchard business running out in 1910, Mrs. Yee Chung decided to pack their belongings and depart for San Francisco. Borden once had its own train station, but now the Southern Pacific station was located in Madera. Borden had faded into obscurity. The family boarded the train for the 185 mile trip to San Francisco, travelling north from Madera through the San Joaquin Valley, and then west to Oakland for the ferry ride across the bay. Twenty-three years had passed, since Mrs. Yee Chung married Yee Chung in 1887.

All of the children moved to San Francisco, except for the oldest daughter, Ah Moy. In order to raise money, Ah Moy had married at just 15 years of age in 1906 to a wealthy merchant and store owner from Coulterville. American-born Chinese women were extremely few in number, and their families were inclined to accept only husbands from wealthier backgrounds, and could afford to pay the family for the rights to marry. With her husband Sun Kow, the two were blessed with four daughters and a son, Minnie, Florence, Grace, Dorothy, and Davis. The family continued to run the Sun Sun Wo Store until the early 1920s, providing much-needed general merchandise to Coulterville residents and miners.

In San Francisco, the family could seek comfort and employment among other immigrant Chinese. During that time period, there was heavy discrimination against the Chinese, and chances of employment were better within the Chinese community. After finding housekeeping rooms on Sacramento Street in Chinatown to call home, survival became the priority.

The eldest son, Lee Chong, now 21, found work at the Sing Chong Company to help earn income for the family. Jue was 17, and also worked to help out.

The other brothers -- Sam, Bing, and Look -- were too young to work, and attended public school. But the times were difficult, and the family continued to struggle to survive. After a year or so, Lee decided to seek better opportunities in the Sacramento Delta farming country. He struck out on his own and moved to the George Beleney Ranch on Grand Island, initially as a farm laborer. From there, he could send money home to help his mother raise his siblings. He used his native-American English to get ahead.

As a farm laborer, Lee Chong worked at various odd jobs on the ranch. It didn't take long for him to learn how to operate a farm and manage the farm laborers, as he and Jue Chong and two other Chinese entered into a lease on the 560 acre George Beleney Rancy on Grand Island on December 10, 1912 as L.E. Chong and Company.

He returned to San Francisco for an arranged marriage to Lily Luke in December of 1913. They had two sons, George and Edward, and daughter Violet. Unfortunately, Edward died at 2 years old, and Violet in her 20s.

In 1912, the second daughter Ah Lin was married in San Francisco at 17 years of age to a Sacramento merchant, Chan Tai Oy. He was manager of the Tong Sun & Company, a Chinese partnership that operated a wholesale fish and produce business. She moved with her husband to Sacramento, and raised three sons and one daughter, Eddie, Daniel, Thomas, and Marjorie. One other son, William, died young. Lin's husband later became one of the founding partners of General Produce Company in 1933.

Lee recruited non-English speaking Chinese as farm laborers. He could only lease, as the laws restricted land ownership to Chinese. He sent for his mother and brothers, Sam, Bing and Look, to join him on the ranch. He used the help of the other brothers to run the ranch. However, his two youngest brothers, Bing and Look were just 15 and 13, respectively, and moved to Sacramento to live with their sister, Lin, and her husband, Chan Tai Oy. Bing and Look attended middle and high school for several years, before returning to the ranch.

After many years of hard work, Yee Chung's sons were able to earn capital from farming asparagus, pears, and other vegetables. World War I was still in progress, and they profited from good fruit and vegetable prices. But as the war ended, prices began to plummet, and farming became a difficult business to make ends meet. Mrs. Chung was forced to earn extra money for the family by being a midwife for Chinese families in the delta area. She was reported to have delivered her own children in Borden, and used this experience as a midwife. At one time, it was said she delivered "half the Chinese men in Sacramento."

Mrs. Chung was quite resourceful, and she would visit her grandchildren in Coulterville by hitching up a horse and buggy and traveling for 2 days and nights. The horses knew the route, and she continued on the dirt roads into the evening, using lanterns to light the way. Her youngest sons would sometimes join her for the trip, and she packed a pistol under the buggy seat to protect against highway robbers. That must have been quite an adventure. Mrs. Chung was quite independent, but had the good sense and wisdom to keep the family close-knit and together.

But running the ranch was a large job, with all the cooking, laundry, and sewing required to keep her five sons working. So Mrs. Chung asked her daughter, Ah Moy, to move to the ranch to help out with the chores. So Moy¹s husband, Sun Kow, sold their Coulterville store and moved in with the family onto the ranch. Ah Moy would rise early in the morning to cook for her brothers, and wash their clothes, acknowledging her mother's request.

Lee Chong went into partnership with Sun Kow as farm laborer contractors. They treated their farmhands fairly, paying them five dollars a day, which was considered a pretty decent wage for that period. They provided motel-like living quarters for their workers. The income from the farm allowed Lee to live a good life, and he spent the family's money on expensive new cars, expensive Packard farm trucks, and the best horses (the latter reportedly were not just farm horses, but fire-truck horses). They primarily raised asparagus which was rapidly increasing in acreage during that time period. They also raised vegetables and farmed pears.

Lee's profligate spending habits caused much disagreement among the brothers and there was a big dispute toward the end of 1922. The brothers felt that the family's income was not being shared equally, or spent wisely. As a result, Jue and Bing Chong leased the 170-acre McCarthy Ranch on December 15, 1923. This ranch was on Grand Island just north of the Isleton bridge. The ranch had been previously rented by a Japanese immigrant farmer, who was not allowed to renew his lease due to California land lease laws and U. S. Supreme Court confirmation that restricted renting by Japanese. Jue and Bing rented the farm, and started to earn a living raising pears and asparagus.

On the McCarthy Ranch, Moy and Sun Kow¹s family and Mrs. Yee Chung lived in the main farm house and the rest of the Chong brothers had living quarters in a bunk house. Moy did the laundry and cooking for her family, her brothers and also for farm workers. Sun Kow ran a restaurant in Isleton across the street from the National Cannery, where many family members found seasonal work canning tomatoes, pears and asparagus. It was a hard life, as Ah Moy also worked at the cannery until late in the evening during canning season. Her daughter, Minnie, worked at the cannery as the company nurse. For the next several years, the brothers worked diligently at farming, though the business climate for farming remained very tough. Asparagus and pear farming continued to be hurt by low prices. Recognizing that they needed to use their mechanical ingenuity and experience with farm machinery, they identified a need for a better asparagus plow. Up to that time the plows being used did not perform their intended function to chop up the old asparagus plants and to prevent regrowth. Jue Chong and his friend Tony Miller approached the Bank of Isleton for a business loan to develop the plow, but was turned down as the bank felt the project was too risky. However, the Chong brothers and Miller persisted and were able to develop the first successful asparagus plow in 1926. Jue¹s younger brothers were all involved in the plow¹s development, i.e. Sam, Look, and Bing.

Though lacking in formal college education, they used their "country-boy engineering" to make the equipment highly successful. The Miller and Chong asparagus plow, as it came to be known, was quite a monstrous piece of equipment, and required a specially modified Caterpillar tractor to pull and drive the rotary plow. The asparagus plow was used to chop and pulverize the roots of spent asparagus plants in preparation for planting new crops. The Miller and Chong plow was quite famous in the Delta.

They were awarded a total of seven U.S. Patents from 1928 to 1933 on various design aspects of the plow and blade designs. Income from the plow allowed them to isolate themselves from the Great Depression, which forced many farmers into bankruptcy. The plow was in great demand by asparagus farmers and the clever inventors made a lucrative living by doing contract plowing. They even guaranteed that no more than a small fraction of one percent of the asparagus plants would regrow. The farmers could then rotate new crops to replace their asparagus fields.

Shortly afterwards, a competing asparagus plow design by the Paris brothers of Rio Vista caused Miller and the Chongs to file suit against them in 1934 for patent infringement on the blade design. The case dragged on for several years and came to an end in 1936 when the judge ruled that there was no patent infringement and Miller and the Chongs were ordered to pay $160 in court costs. Proceedings of the court case are stored in the National Archive files in San Bruno.

With their contract plow services, the asparagus plow generated substantial profits, which they used to fund other business investments. In 1926, Bing and Look ventured with other partners in starting Quality Market in Grass Valley selling meats and groceries, but that lasted just a year and one-half. Later, they invested in a wholesale produce business in Sacramento with Lin¹s husband. With this added diversification, the family was able to shield themselves from depression hardships.

Bing was the second brother to get married. He traveled to China in 1929 to visit and pay respects to his father¹s first wife. He was the only Yee Chung child to visit the family in China. While in China, he met and married his wife, Jane. Bing¹s sister, Lin was joined by her two sons, Eddie and Tom, and Ah Moy's son, Davis Sun. This was an opportunity for them to learn Chinese culture, as it was the first time any of them had been to China. Jane and Bing would have five children: Donald, Barbara, Shirley, Jeanette and Nancy. Shirley was an elementary school teacher and passed away in 1963. To this day, Bing Chong's children, grandchildren and their families still gather every Sunday evening at Jane Chong's home--as they have for the past fifty years.

By 1928, Lee Chong leased the larger 880-acre Shelley Ranch, which was on the west side of Grand Island south of the Howard Landing Ferry. Lee was not involved with the plow invention and was strictly a farmer. By this time the Chong brothers were reputed to be the largest open-field farmers in the area. In 1932, Lee moved his family to the Hart Smith ranch at the southern edge of Isleton, where Lee¹s son George commuted to Rio Vista High School in his 2-seat roadster, giving rides to his cousin Dorothy Sun. Dorothy recalled racing down Main Street on roller skates, one down each side of the street, while they were waiting for Chinese school to start. Compared to other kids in Chinese school, they were "oldies" and took it less serious. In the late 1930s Lee moved his family to Sacramento, where he operated a bar and restaurant, the Jade Peacock at Sixth and J Streets. The restaurant lasted just six months. Dorothy Sun would later gain fame as a headline dancer at Charlie Low's Forbidden City in San Francisco's Chinatown. The club was a popular restaurant cabaret featuring an all-Asian cast.
During World War II she performed as a USO entertainer in the Pacific.

Because the Isleton Schools were segregated, Tony Miller suggested they move to another ranch closer to Ryde, in order for Bing¹s children to attend the integrated Beaver Union School. So in 1936, the brothers Jue, Bing, and and Sam leased the Wolf Ranch on Grand Island, located halfway between the Isleton bridge and Ryde. Bing¹s oldest son, Donald, had already started school at William Land Elementary in Sacramento, living with his Aunt Lin, and was then able to return to a school close to home.

Sam Chong worked on the ranch repairing and maintaining the plow, as he was extremely good mechanically. Sam loved to hunt deer, and on occasion Sam, Look, Jue, and Tony Miller would take off on out-of-state hunting trips. They were also avid fishermen, catching striped bass along the Sacramento River. At the same time Bing moved his family to Sacramento, Sam, Jue, and Mrs. Chong moved into the house next-door to Bing in 1941. Sam married Rose Hing in 1948, but they did not have their own children, though Rose had two from a prior marriage.

Look Chong was the only brother who never left the farm. He married May Yee in Reno and lived a good life on the farm. They had no children. When his brother Lee moved to the south Isleton ranch, Look and May moved onto the Shelley Ranch to farm its huge acreage. Farming was still difficult, but he could help fund the operation with his plow money. When Jue, Sam, and Bing moved up to Sacramento, Look was able to purchase the Wolf ranch with help from Bing and Sam.

In 1941 Bing built two houses on Fourteenth Street between W and X Streets in Sacramento, one for his family and the other next door for his mother and brothers, Sam and Jue, just a block away from Oy Chan's residence. Jue was said to always worry about things, and this may have contributed to his death. It was at this house where Jue unexpectedly passed away on December 9, 1941 at age 48, having never married.

With the advent of World War II a most fascinating chapter in the history of Yee Chung's family came to a close.


Notes

Yee Chung¹s real name was Leong Yee Chong, i.e. last name Leong

Testimony about the family and their 1929 China trip are
in NARA files 12017/36357 and 36342 at San Bruno.

The Miller and Chong court case is identified as number 3747-L.

Bing Chong's houses in Sacramento were later demolished to make
way for the Interstate 80 freeway.

Minnie Sun was interviewed by Marcia Chan in December, 1987.

Eddie Chan was interviewed by Marcia Chan in 1980 and by Ron Chong in April, 2001,
and August, 2001.

Dorothy Sun was interviewed in August, 2001 by Ron and Jeff Chong.

Jane Chong and her family were interviewed in December, 2001 by Darryl Chong

Chong family history with many pictures and updates can be found on
www.geocities.com/chongadm/Ancestry.htm