Exhibit: Santa Barbara Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage, 1870s-1970s
Sun Yoke Tong (1908-1988)
Laundryman and Business Owner, Caring Father, and a Lifelong Friend
By Melinda Yamane Crawford
Sun Yoke Tong, 1927
Early Family History
When Sun Yoke Tong was born on February 12, 1908, in Hoiping, Canton, China, his father, Ying Woo Tong, was 27 and his mother, Quon Shee Chin, was 21. His father, a U.S. citizen, was born in San Francisco, CA on June 26, 1880; his mother was born in Hoiping, Canton, China on September 18, 1886. Sun was the eldest of eight children. Two brothers and one sister were also born in Hoiping, Canton, China. The four siblings arrived in Seattle, WA with their mother on October 27, 1921. From there, they traveled to Santa Barbara to be with their husband/father. Between 1924 and 1930, the family continued to grow with the birth of another son and three daughters.
Ying worked as a laundryman and lived at 21 W. Carrillo St. The name of his firm was Wah Hing Chung. In the 1922 Santa Barbara City Directory, he lived at 37 E. De La Guerra.
In 1924, Ying founded the Peking Noodle Manufacturing Company located at 710 E. 1st St., Los Angeles, which continues to be owned and operated today at a newer location by his descendants.
Sun Tong Laundry
The 1930 U.S. Census has Sun residing as a lodger at 113 W. De La Guerra St., and his occupation is listed as a washer. The head of the household that’s listed for that property is Gip Wah Yee, a laundry owner.
Rather than following his father’s career path in the noodle industry in Los Angeles, Sun started his own laundry in Santa Barbara.
Quoting an interview with son, Chris Tong, March 1, 2023:
The family’s laundry name was Sun Tong Laundry at 26 E Ortega St. That was the second location of my father’s laundry.
The original location of the laundry was at 30 West Cota Street
Sun with friends (all bachelors or men in SB without their wives), 30 W. Cota St.
Sun with his brother and friends, 26 E. Ortega St.
My father would get up at about 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning, every day except for Saturday and Sunday, so that he could fire up the boilers because the presses ran on steam heat. He not only did the wash, but he folded or packaged the laundry. He did all of the bookkeeping. He also delivered and picked up the laundry.
I have this great picture of him, in fact it’s on my desk now. He’s standing in the main room. There’s an ironing board, and there’s another press. He looks to be the very proud small business owner, just posing in his shop at 30 W. Cota.
Sun as a proud laundry business owner
Tong Family at Sun Tong Laundry, 26 E. Ortega St.
Family Life at the Laundry
When we were living in the laundry, my father cobbled together all of these bedrooms. My sisters lived on the one side, and there was already a room that became my bedroom. Everything was centrally around the kitchen area.
There was a big round dining table, and right over there was a sink, and an area to chop vegetables or whatever. On the other side of the partition was the kitchen itself, and there was a big industrial-sized wok that was installed. My mother, Quan Tuey Hai (1911-1996) did so much cooking on that, as well as on a four-burner gas stove.
When my parents bought a house at 220 W. Cota Street, we had a very unusual schedule. We would wake up in the morning and walk back to the laundry and would actually have breakfast at the laundry. That’s where my mother did all of the cooking. She did not consider it efficient to move all of the cooking to the new house. Because we would come home from school, and we do our homework around this round table in the kitchen area at the laundry. That was our life probably for the first 8 years of my life.
More About the Sun Yoke Tong Family
Sun and Quan had five children. Their eldest daughter, Susan, was born in Hoiping, Canton, China. About 15 years later, she was followed by the birth of Rose and Lily. The twins were born in a hospital in San Francisco, just nine days after their heavily pregnant mother arrived on February 9, 1948 to join her husband in America. A year later, Wallace “Chris” was born, and he was followed by the youngest, Jeanne. The siblings also have an adopted brother, Donald Yue, their mother’s cousin’s child.
After their father retired in 1968, the parents moved to Los Angeles to be near family and to provide an opportunity for Rose, Lily and Jeanne to attend college in Southern California. Susan was already married and living in Los Angeles, and Donald took up real estate there. In his retirement, Sun suffered a stroke that he never fully recovered from. Following their deaths, both parents were laid to rest at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles.
Tong Family
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Chris Tong for sharing his family history, stories and photographs; and to Raymond D. Chong for sharing his articles and Tong family photos.
References
Arrival Case File for Sun Yoke Tong. Accessed at National Archives at San Francisco, CA. March 31, 2023.
“Quan Shee Tong”. California, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1843-1999. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
“Quan Tuey Hai Tong”. California, U.S. Death Index, 1940-1997. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
“Quan Tuey Hai Tong”. Glendale, Los Angeles County, California, U.S., FindaGrave Index, 1600s to Current. Accessed on Acesetry.com.
“Sun Yoke Tong”. Glendale, Los Angeles County, California, U.S., FindaGrave Index, 1600s to Current. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
“Sun Yoke Tong”. Washington, U.S., Arrivals and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
“The Peking Noodle Company History”. Accessed at https://pekingnoodle.com/about.htm.
Tong, Chris. Interviews with Melinda Yamane Crawford. March 1, March 22 and April 3, 2023.
“Ying Woo Tong”. Santa Barbara City Directory, California, U.S., City Directories, 1882-1995. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
“Ying Woo Tong”, Santa Barbara County, 1900-1918, California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1928. Accessed on Ancestry.com.