Marianna June Young

June's parents, Fred Young and Nancy Wei, were born in China, but met in St. Louis and were married on August 25,1925

As a young child in China, June’s mother, was subjected to the, now outlawed, Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls — bound feet being considered a status symbol and a mark of beauty. When June’s mother developed gangrene in one of her legs, her family sent her to St. Louis for an operation, which resulted in an amputation of the leg up to the knee. June’s mother was left in St. Louis in the care of a missionary nurse, Mrs. Koch, whom the family knew in Shanghai, and who, with all expenses paid by the family, accepted the responsibility of raising June’s mother, who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in music. June’s mother was an accomplished pianist, violinist and mezzo soprano, and a teacher of music in China, Hong Kong and Macau. June, with tears in her eyes when listening to a piano sonata, often expressed her deep regret not having listened to her mother’s desire to teach her to play the piano.

June’s father, was a Chinese Nationalist diplomat, and was dedicated to bringing democracy to China. His family, among others, included diplomats and business men, but also Qing Dynasty scholars and a funder of Sun Yet Sen’s Alliance for Democracy in San Francisco.

When June was about eight years old her mother insisted on visiting her family in Shanghai, and so the family, which then included Fred, a one year old boy, took off for China, only to become embroiled in the Japanese invasion of China, and being forced to escape south, finally settling in Canton. As the Japanese progressed, the family made plans to take a boat to Hong Kong, and just before boarding the boat, June’s mother insisted on returning to their home to be sure their cat, Beauty, had been taken care of. That missed boat was not missed by Japanese war planes and sunk. The family did make it to Hong Kong, and probably were there during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, because June volunteered (?) was recruited (?) to spy for the Flying Tigers, informing them of Japanese troop movements and war planes over Hong Kong. The family, at some point, managed to make it to Macau, a neutral Portuguese colony. The family must have moved back to Hong Kong after the war, because June’s mother died in 1949 and was buried in Hong Kong.

Soon after her mother’s demise, June went to Europe, living in Paris for two years and traveling the Continent and England, Scotland and Ireland. She was engaged in some sort of import/export business, but was more engaged in visiting museums, especially the Louvre, where she was not impressed by the Mona Lisa. She preferred to look at a painting and decide for herself, if it was worthy of public viewing, not being influenced by an artist’s popularity. She needed to make her own decisions about what to see and like. June was very independent.

At some point June came back to the U.S. and lived briefly in New York City, working at J. Walter Thompson Company. In 1959 she moved to Pasadena, California, where within a short period she was drafted by the Prudential Insurance Company to become its first Chinese woman agent. She went on to become her own insurance broker and ended up selling health insurance policies to small and medium size companies in the Los Angeles Area.

June was an avid photographer, developing her own photos. She loved to go ballroom dancing; she was a lover of fine art and classical music, but also jazz, especially the blues and swing, and big band music. June wrote poetry, but rarely shared it with others. She loved to be read to, As a child her mother read children’s books to her and June could quote many of the rhymes from memory.

Traveling was in her blood; she loved hiking in the mountains of California, and visiting the national parks in the Western U.S. She loved animals and birds, even raising a hummingbird that had fallen out of its nest. She had a wonderful sense of humor and made anyone she came in contact with, at ease. She loved people, life, and the wonder of the universe, often philosophizing about why we are here, and what it is we are meant to give to others. June was an extraordinary human being. She will be missed, but not forgotten.

Written by her friend of 65 years, Cecily Surace