Anna ‘Ann’ Mei Wu, a friend to orphaned children, dead at 101

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Ann Mei Wu, whose two baby daughters died from disease, was later touched by the plight of orphans in Japanese-controlled Shanghai in World War II.

At that time, “There were so many war orphans, if you wanted to take one off the streets, you could,” said Helen Lee, once one of those children.

Luckily, Lee and her sister, Jean Mih, were cared for by two women, American missionary Wilhelmina Kalsbeek, and a Chinese translator, Ruby Liu, who took in homeless children. The sisters called the women their “American mother” and “Chinese mother.”

Mrs. Wu, who had grown up on Cermak Road in Chicago’s Chinatown before moving to China to marry her husband, became a patroness of the girls and other orphaned children. She and her husband shared food, ration coupons and parental kindness. “My sister and I kind of became their children,” Lee said. “They were so good to us.”

Ann and Paak Shing “P.S.” Wu. | Family photo

Ann and Paak Shing “P.S.” Wu. | Family photo

They all lived in what was known as the “Frenchtown” section of Shanghai, where the Gallic art of baking continued during the war.

Mrs. Wu and her husband, Paak Shing Wu, “shared loaves of French bread with us. I still love the taste of French bread,” Lee said.

Mrs. Wu’s generosity may have helped mollify Shanghai’s occupiers, according to Mih. “The Japanese would come through and look at what you have in the house, and they would put stickers on it,” Mih said. “They could take furniture. They could put a sticker on a chair and it would be gone.”

Thanks in part to Mrs. Wu’s largess, the girls’ caregivers had ingredients to make American treats similar to chocolate chip cookies, which they sold to Japanese soldiers.

After that, “the Japanese did not put stickers on the furniture. They liked the cookies,” Mih said.

The diplomatic connections of “Aunt Ann” and “Uncle P.S.” ultimately helped the two girls and their caregivers immigrate to America. Helen and Jean, who are not biological sisters, were adopted by Kalsbeek in Michigan, where then-Congressman Gerald Ford helped them cut through government red tape. Today Lee, 77, lives in Roselle. Mih, also 77, lives in Tennessee.

Mrs. Wu, 101, died June 25 at Presbyterian Homes in Evanston, where she had lived for 18 years. To the end of her days, Lee and Mih stayed in touch with her and visited.

Young Ann Moy. | Family photo

Young Ann Moy. | Family photo

Mrs. Wu grew up with two sisters and four brothers in an apartment with no hot water in Chicago’s Chinatown. A potbelly stove was the only heat.

Her father, Dong Hoy Moy, came to America with two brothers to seek railroad work out West. But anti-Chinese prejudice was so prevalent in California that they decided to settle in Chicago, said Mrs. Wu’s niece by marriage, May M. Tam Moy. The men opened a Moy Brothers’ gift shop in Chinatown.

Because of anti-Chinese immigration limits in that era, there were few Chinese women to marry. “They had to delay families,” May M. Tam Moy said. “There’s a gap of 40 years” in the ages of Mrs. Wu’s father and her mother, Gee Shee.

Ann Moy attended Haines grade school in Chinatown. After her daytime classes, she went to Chinese school from 4 to 6 p.m. every day.

Young Ann Moy at 16 in Chicago. | Family photo

Young Ann Moy at 16 in Chicago. | Family photo

She was a student at Hyde Park High School when she met her future husband, Paak Shing “P.S.” Wu, who was pursuing a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Chicago. He grew up in a well-to-do family in China. They both sang in the choir at Chicago’s Chinese Christian Union Church, 2301 S. Wentworth.

He was dazzled. “She was so very beautiful,” May M. Tam Moy said.

At 16, she left Chicago and accompanied Paak Shing Wu to China, where he began his diplomatic career. They married in Canton and later had two little girls, Maxine and Judith, both of whom died as toddlers. Judith died while Mrs. Wu was in the hospital for a month, battling typhoid fever.

Ann and Paak Shing Wu on their wedding day. | Family photo

Ann and Paak Shing Wu on their wedding day. | Family photo

Despite her losses, Mrs. Wu never shrank from family responsibilities. When a relative died in a small Chinese village, there was little in the way of embalming. “Ann, despite being aware of these deplorable conditions, left her own home in China to travel to the village to take care of [the relative’s] funeral arrangements,” her brother, Dr. Grant Moy, said in a eulogy. “She felt it was fully her obligation to do so.”

From 1942 to 1945, she and her husband lived in Shanghai. They moved to Singapore in 1945, where he served as a consul general. In 1950, as Communism rose in China, they returned to Chicago, and he began a career as a stockbroker.

Ann Wu and her husband, P.S. Wu. | Family photo

Ann Wu and her husband, P.S. Wu. | Family photo

The couple again worshipped at the Chinese Christian Union Church where they first met. There, “She sponsored many children who could not afford to go to [summer] camps,” May M. Tam Moy said.

And when their mother took ill, Mrs. Wu “went to the nursing home daily to feed her and to tend to her,” her brother said.

“She just fit the role of a diplomat’s wife perfectly,” said a niece, Vicki Kwan. “She was extremely elegant and graceful. Very kind. Always generous.”

She also had “an unusual amount of strength,” Kwan said. After her husband died, Mrs. Wu sold her Lincolnwood house and moved into the Presbyterian Homes, where, into her 90s, she swam and exercised daily.

In addition to Dr. Grant Moy, Mrs. Wu is survived by another brother, Eugene, and many nieces and nephews. Services have been held.

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