Dorothy

Dorothy Esther Te-lan Huie Wong was born on November 30, 1902 and died on October 24, 1999. She was the eighth child and youngest daughter of Louise Van Arnam and the Reverend Huie Kin. From her earliest years as a hard-working young woman of inner strength and determination, Dorothy met adversity head on without complaint. Her life of action and service spanned almost the entire twentieth century.

Like her sisters and brothers, Dorothy grew up in Manhattan. She attended Hunter College and graduated in 1924 with a B.A. and a master’s degree in Microbiology. She was a star player on Hunter’s championship basketball team, which was featured in a publication celebrating the college’s fiftieth anniversary.

Dorothy and Amos on their wedding day, 1928.

After college, Dorothy traveled to China on a Rockefeller Foundation grant and taught microbiology at Peking Union Medical College. There she met Amos Yi-hui Wong, who was in surgical training at PUMC. They married in Beijing in 1928 and moved to Shanghai.

In Shanghai, Dorothy helped Amos establish his medical practice as a surgeon and obstetrician-gynecologist. Together, they built the Woo See Women and Infants Hospital in Shanghai. Dorothy was the business manager. She was also on the faculty of St. John’s University Medical College and taught microbiology to first year medical students.

Thoroughly modern and forward-thinking, Dorothy was one of the few women who could be seen driving her own car through the streets of Shanghai. During World War II, she and a group of friends and family had an underground network that helped people who were trying to escape occupying Japanese forces. After the war, when the Allies came into Shanghai and looked at the records of the Japanese military, they learned that the network’s activities had been under investigation. Dorothy and Amos were told that, if the war had lasted only another two weeks, they could have been arrested and jailed for their courageous actions.

Dorothy and Amos had four children: Amos, Kin, Ruth and Bert. Their second son, Kin, died of rabies in 1942. In 1947, Dorothy brought her oldest son, Amos (Yuan Meng) to the U.S. to attend high school at Mt. Hermon, MA. In 1948, Dorothy brought her younger children, Ruth and Bert, to the U.S. She and Amos separated in 1948. Amos stayed in China and Dorothy settled in the U.S.

Dorothy moved to New York City, where she worked as a bacteriologist. Through a free TB screening program, she learned she had TB. She was hospitalized at a sanitarium for some six months to a year. Fortunately, she had caught the infection early and was cured. She moved to Boston and worked in a bacteriology laboratory, but after she contracted a fungal infection, she decided to change her profession.

Ever resourceful, Dorothy obtained her master’s degree in Library Science from Simmons College. She worked at Yale Medical School in the medical library, and then as medical reference librarian at West Haven VA Hospital until her retirement. After retirement, she remained active, living on her own in Connecticut and New York until the age of 90. Eventually, she moved to Colorado Springs to be near her son, Bert, until her death in 1999.

Dorothy kept a special place in her heart for all her family, including her grandchildren and her nieces and nephews. Her home was always open. As the youngest of the six sisters, she was held in special affection by her many grand-nieces and -nephews, who enjoyed seeing her sparkle at the family reunions. She loved attending the reunions and being in the company of the boisterous, ever-growing and faithfully connected Huie family.