Mrs. Yee Shee Wong was born in Southern China in 1894 in a culture that demanded passivity and submission of women. In 1913 she married Wong Kwong Hon in China. He had immigrated to the United States in 1909 but returned for their arranged marriage in 1913. He eventually joined an uncle in Beloit where they operated the Nan King Lo Chop Suey House Restaurant, better known as the Chop House on West Grand Avenue.

Ten years later in 1923, Mr. Wong returned to China and brought Yee Shee to Beloit, where they settled in a home on Lincoln Avenue. She was the first woman of Chinese ancestry to settle in Beloit and one of only 150 Chinese women who had entered the United States legally between 1904 and 1924. After the Immigration Act of 1924 which prohibited entrance of any foreign-born Asian women, not a single Chinese woman was admitted to the end of the decade.

To this marriage was born seven children: Gim, Fung, George, Helen, Harry, Frank and Mary. In addition to these children, Yee Shee also cared for two step-brothers-in-law who lived with the family while attending school to learn English.

Then, just when life seemed golden, tragedy struck. Father Wong, with a flourishing restaurant business, was shot and killed in 1938. So with a family ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen months, Yee Shee Wong became both mother and father to her children.

An uncle and business partner of her husband living in Hong Kong encouraged Yee Shee to return to Hong Kong with all the children where he would help her raise them but she remained here, insisting that her husband had come to this country for a better life and more opportunities for his children.

The restaurant was sold to a cousin so the children could concentrate on their education. At this point the strength of Mrs. Wong showed. Living in a strange culture with a language she understood poorly, she bestowed upon the children not only maternal love, but instilled in them a high sense of morals, family loyalty, ambition, hard work, determination, courage and aspiration, with emphasis upon preparation for life through higher education.

Her diligence in nurturing these characteristics in her children paid handsome dividends, not only to her children, but to the Beloit community and the nation. All of her children earned college degrees.

The extended family, including Yee Shee’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their spouses, have the remarkable total of 96 college degrees (as of 2013) including sixteen doctorate degrees. Included in the listing is a Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs of a college, medical doctors, including one who had an Academic Presidential Endowed Chair named for him, a dentist, an architect, several nurses and clinicians, an occupational therapist, a computer scientist, electrical and mechanical engineers, accountants, teachers and pharmacist, to name a few of the fields.

One son served as president of the Beloit School Board and on other public commissions.