 From Madera to Coulterville: A Chinese
connection
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
By Bill Coate-- Correspondent ([email protected]) - The Madera Tribune
Now as interesting as that may be, the reader may be tempted to ask, “Ok, so what does this have to do with Madera?” Actually, that is a good question, and there is an equally good answer, but it will take a few lines to tell it. Back in 1902, one of the pillars of the Chinese community in Madera, Yee Chung, passed away, leaving a pregnant wife and six children. Although the successful fruit merchant left a sizable estate, within a few years, the Widow Chung was so hard pressed financially that she accepted assistance from one Len Fat, who was known around Madera as “Shorty the Slop Man.” Shorty came to Mrs. Chung’s rescue and furnished food and money to the widow, who in turn promised, according to Shorty, to give the swill gatherer her daughter, Ah Moy, for a wife when she was old enough. By the summer of 1906, Shorty figured that 15 years was plenty old enough, so he went to the Chung house on the Dorn Ranch to claim his bride, but alas, his dreams of love were dispelled when he learned that his young love had been promised to someone else--”a rich merchant” from Coulterville named Sun Kow, who had apparently outbid Shorty by $300. Shorty was furious and demanded the return of his money, which he calculated to be $510. When Mrs. Chung denied that she had ever promised Ah Moy to Shorty and refused to return any of his money, the swill gatherer expressed his resentment in no uncertain terms, whereupon the Widow Chung grabbed her poker stick from the fireplace and began “to tattoo a dragon on his scalp with it.” Fortunately Shorty’s feet saved him, and he removed himself from danger. He told his story to the men of his tong and even went to court, but nothing ever came of it. He never got any of his money back and just dropped off the pages of history. It was a different story for Ah Moy, however. In December 1907, she became Mrs. Sun Kow and moved to Coulterville to live with her husband in the apartment behind his store. Meanwhile her mother and six siblings carried on in Madera until 1910, when they pulled up stakes and moved to Isleton to continue farming. Ah Moy was a dutiful wife and assisted her husband in his mercantile enterprise. She also gave birth to four children. For 13 years the family lived in Coulterville at the Sun Sun Wo Store. By 1920, however, she had grown so lonesome for her own family that she became depressed. So distraught was the former Madera maiden that her unhappiness persuaded her husband to sell his store for $500 and move to Isleton where she could be near her mother, sister, and five brothers. The move to Isleton may have improved Ah Moy’s outlook, but it did nothing for her husband. He was not a farmer; he was a merchant, and he was never completely happy in the Delta country. Therefore, in 1923 Sun Kow bade Ah Moy and his children good-bye and sailed for his ancestral home in China. Knowing that, because of ill health, he would never return to the United States, Sun Kow took a wife in China and fathered a son, Sun Gum Fun. Meanwhile, his family in California continued to live near their extended family and prospered. Then in 1935, a strange thing happened. Sun Kow and Ah Moy died on the same day. Sun Kow’s wife in China sent a letter informing his family in America of his demise, and Ah Moy’s family sent a letter to China telling of her death. The two letters passed each other in route. Today two children of Sun Kow and Ah Moy survive and live in Sacramento, and the Sun Sun Wo store in which they were born still stands. It is now on the National Register of Historic sites, and as was indicated above is now for sale. One has to wonder how Sun Kow would react to the news that his old store--the one he sold for $500 in 1920 was about to be sold for more than a quarter of a million dollars!
|
