maternal "LI" FAMILY
Lily is a Li on the side of her mother, Li Kwan Fei. Her mother, brother and sister were all among the earliest doctors in China, trained by American missionaries.
three generations of doctors
Lily's uncle, Dr. Li Khai Fai, married Dr. Kong Tai-Heong. Both had trained at Canton Medical College, emigrated to Hawaii, and played a critical role in controlling an outbreak of bubonic plague in Honolulu's Chinatown in 1899 due to their prior experience of the plague in Hong Kong. Their nine children - Lily's first cousins - are: Min-Hin, Benjamin, Elizabeth - all doctors, and Mary, Joseph, Gladys, Sadie, Goldie and Sylvianne.
Gladys - a.k.a. Li Ling Ai - a writer and generally colorful character connected to Ripley of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” wrote a memoir about her parents entitled Life Is For A Long Time in 1972. The book relates how their Li grandfather was persecuted for his conversion to Christianity and how their mother became a doctor.
In 2013, we learned from filmmaker Robin Lung who got in touch because of this website that Li Ling Ai made an influential and Oscar-winning documentary "Kukan" (i.e., 苦幹) in 1941. It's the only unarchived Oscar-winner. Visit Robin's site: www.nestedeggproductions.com to find out more - and please consider a donation to help Robin complete her film about our extended family member!
According to a PRC newspaper clipping from the 1980s saved by Alberta (presumably received from her cousin Dr. Tan Zhenqiang in Beijing, who was Ivy and Harry Taam's son and Loretta's brother), Li Kwan Fei's and Li Khai Fai's sister, Li Qinghui, was a doctor who played a modest role in the 1911 revolution.
Gladys - a.k.a. Li Ling Ai - a writer and generally colorful character connected to Ripley of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” wrote a memoir about her parents entitled Life Is For A Long Time in 1972. The book relates how their Li grandfather was persecuted for his conversion to Christianity and how their mother became a doctor.
In 2013, we learned from filmmaker Robin Lung who got in touch because of this website that Li Ling Ai made an influential and Oscar-winning documentary "Kukan" (i.e., 苦幹) in 1941. It's the only unarchived Oscar-winner. Visit Robin's site: www.nestedeggproductions.com to find out more - and please consider a donation to help Robin complete her film about our extended family member!
According to a PRC newspaper clipping from the 1980s saved by Alberta (presumably received from her cousin Dr. Tan Zhenqiang in Beijing, who was Ivy and Harry Taam's son and Loretta's brother), Li Kwan Fei's and Li Khai Fai's sister, Li Qinghui, was a doctor who played a modest role in the 1911 revolution.