Name: Glenhaven Memorial Chapel
Address: Vancouver, BC

It's been 5 months since mom's been gone. Just been going back through the puctures. Wish I could just pick up the phone to hear her voice. I was thinking about some of the things mom and dad got up to in order to break the monotony of farm life. There was a year where things were slow on the farm, all the plots had been planted and nothing was ready for harvest. Instead of relaxing, they went and got jobs on a potato farm helping bring in the harvest! Mom kept marveling at how easy it was to just walk along picking up potatos that had been turned over by a machine! I also remember the big oyster shuck. Somehow dad got a hold of a giant bag of oysters. I mean the bag was as big as a potato sack. Uncle and aunt from across the street came over and we were all trying like heck to open these darn things with butter knives, screwdrivers and hammers. It took forever and there were lots of shell pieces to pick out, but there was enough to feed 2 families. Mom deep fried ours and they were wonderful.

Now that the weather is so mild, I think of mom who I'm sure would have been out and about the back yard cleaning up the soil in the planters and trimming the branches off the shrubbery.  She would be looking through her jars of vegetable seeds getting ready to sow them for the first crop of peas to be consumed. Those peas always tasted so much better than the store bought ones...
I guess I will have to try my hand at it so that we can enjoy them once again!

Here's another snippet of farm life. I remember a particular year when the mosquitoes were so bad they attacked in squadrons. 

It was a really busy on the farm. We had a rush order for delivery early the next morning. It was after dinner and we had all hands on deck.

We were in the lettuce patch. The sun had dropped below the treeline so we were harvesting by lamplight.

With the sun down the mosquitoes were out in full force. This was before the days of DEET so we were trying to keep moving so they couldn't bite us. 

We were all working away when mom suddenly lets out a screech and starts jumping around slapping herself. She looked like she was doing some sort of pagan dance by lamplight in the middle of the field!

She later told us she was so furious because as she was bent over cutting lettuce, the mosquitoes zoomed in and bit through her clothes. Her back and behind were covered in welts.

When we were small, dad would drop mom, grandma and us kids off at the Shaw Theater on Hastings to watch Chinese movies. Mom enjoyed them -- for me, it was more like time off the farm! Back then the movies were black and whites with lots of them either operas or musicals.

As I got older, I developed a tolerance for that high pitched style of singing. I didn't mind watching the flicks on TV, though I never could figure out what they were saying. The draw was the nostalgia it evoked plus the simple fact that I was hanging out with my mom.

Mom sure enjoyed watching those flicks. While thinking about this it brought to mind an image of mom on the farm. She'd be on her knees in the radish patch, scarf around her head, strands of raffia in her mouth, singing an aria from some opera. A pleasant memory.

Welcome family and friends to this celebration of the life of Helen Lock Chee Yip.  

Helen is predeceased by her father Lock Ki, her mother Hsiu Ying Chu, husband James Kwong Toa Yip, father-in-law Yip Sun Wing, mother-in-law Chow Hop Yee and daughter Betty Get Ho Okada.  

She is survived by her children Douglas, Janet, Margaret and Henry; sons-in-law Larry and Rusty; daughters-in-law Judy and Mary; 9 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren; brother Lock Gim Tien, his wife,  a niece and 3 surviving nephews.

Mom was born in the Pun Yu district of Guangzhou on 27 December 1934. Her formative years saw a period of intense political change in the country. She became a young bride at the age of 17 and soon after entered motherhood in 1951. Over the next few years the young family joined many emigrants from southern China on the trek towards Gum Shan  emigrating first to Hong Kong and then eventually to their final destination of Vancouver, BC.

The early years were lean  the family whose emigration occurred separately and  in stages, worked hard to get the passage for grandma and Betty waiting in Hong Kong.  That stage complete, they then turned to acquiring a parcel of land on Byrne Road to farm. Douglas was born in 1955 and later Janet, Margaret and Henry arrived in quick succession.  By the late 70s, the family was able to sponsor the emigration of mom's mother (poh), her brother and his young family.

Managing the farm was one of mom's two main occupations for the next 30+ years.  She planned crop rotation,  planted and harvested the veggies. While we were toddlers mom also worked at the now defunct Fresh Pak factory in Burnaby -- bringing home bags of crinkle-cut French fries that were a treat from our regular rice diet.

But farm life wasn't all veggies and hard work we had fun times as well.  We'd experimented with raising rabbits and chickens. There was the time when she sat on the kitchen floor with something jerry-rigged to feed these tiny baby rabbits that had been rejected by the doe. There was another time when we owned a rooster that was kind of on the mean side. Mom was bent over feeding the flock when it came up from behind and attacked. Bye bye rooster... 

In those days  you could go down to the banks of the Fraser and pick up oolichans by the bucketfuls when they were running -- mom got a bang out of that, though it came second to ensuring that the farm ran smoothly.  

Managing the family was mom's other task  In reflection, that was probably the hardest job she took on. We were 5 rambunctious kids who got into a lot of things.  Mom had to feed, clothe and keep us kids in line and tend to dad's needs when he got home from the city job while also trying to meet the approval of the family matriarch. 

She honed her cooking skills to a very high level.  There was always a big spread on the table at mealtime. For special occasions mom would be on her feet for hours making gow and other goodies. But she would never eat until after everyone else had had their fill. When she had some time on her hands, she would organize marathon baking sessions to make twisties or almond cookies.  She didn't spend a lot of time sitting around back then. The grandkids were big fans of her homemade soups as well.

As we kids got older, mom and dad began to travel during the off growing season with members of the farming community  taking cruises and junkets to different parts of the world. Even so, her thoughts were always on the family  a lot of time was spent buying souvenirs for the kids. 

When they finally retired from farming life mom turned her attention to backyard gardening and houseplants.  The transition from 5 acres down to a backyard took some getting used to --she produced enough to feed a bunch of retirees in Chinatown as well as surrounding neighbors. Her seasonal flowers and tropical plants gave her a lot of pride and pleasure.

By 1989 all of her kids were married and independent.  She became a grandmother with the birth of Ryan in 1978 and a great-grandmother with the inclusion of Nate into the family fold in 2009.

For the last 16 years, mom was challenged with a growing list of health issues. But she pushed through the years without a lot of complaining --something the dialysis clinic staff always noted.  When Margaret become mom's main caregiver in 2003, a bond was forged that went beyond mother and daughter.  It wasn't unusual to see the 2 together on a Friday night date. 

Over the years Betty and Larry arranged numerous road trips with them -- from picking fruit in the Okanagan, to sailing up the Indian Arm or visiting the Butchart Gardens.  Mom witnessed the marriages of granddaughters Shannon to Tyler (2013) and Janine to Mike (2014). She even had a quick twirl on the dance floor at Shannon and Tyler's wedding. 
 
Mom lived a full and eventful life  one filled with laughter and tears;  5 kids, 9 grandkids and 3 great-grandkids.  She wasn't one to push her way into the limelight -- she was more at ease in the background.  She sought to instill a sense of respect for others and self-sufficiency into each of her kids. As a friend of Janet's remarked  she was a petite woman with a knowing sparkle in her eye, she spoke only her Chinese dialect but understood all the English around her.as we all face the end stage of our mothers, we can see them for the tough, resilient, bright women they were. 

From your family:  Mom, poh, grandma, ma ma, tai tai --- we all love you and miss you dearly.

Mom used to organize these marathon baking sessions. One time mom, grandma, Betty, Mags and I were working on making a huge batch of twisties. Mom had spent the earlier part of the day preparing the dough. Now it was time to roll out the twisties. There we were, 3 generations twisting the dough into what would soon be deep fried crackers. Of course mom and grandma's looked perfect. Betty was older and more responsible so hers looked okay. Mags and I made these ugly things that kept unravelling even before they hit the fryer. Mom would say "who made these sad ones", give us another pointer and carry on. Fast forward another 3 decades and I found myself once again sitting in mom's kitchen. This time it was Bets who'd made the dough with mom playing the role of consultant. Mags was at work and grandma wasn't around any more. Yet I still made the ugliest ones. How I wish I had more of those moments.

I remember sitting in the kitchen with mom one day. She was avidly reading aloud the entertainment section of the Chinese paper which was full of stories of the life of Bruce Lee who'd recently died. Curious, I asked her where she'd gone to school. 

Turns out she didn't. Her father had always said that his daughter was going to get an education no matter what the cost. Unfortunately he died when mom was at a young age so that opportunity was lost to her.  She told me that she'd sit outside the school fence and listen to the kids reciting their lessons inside. 

So how did mom learn to read? Well, she was self taught. -- She'd look at the photos to work out the story line and then try to interpret the characters, asking questions when she got stuck. You need to know at least 300 characters to be able to read a simple newspaper. So she did a pretty good job of it.

It was a cruel twist of fate that tore the opportunity for literacy out of her grasp -- yet she found a way to achieve it over the years while also raising a family and running a farm. 

Kudos to you mom -- I'm proud of your accomplishments and I'm proud that you're my mom. 

With love

OBITUARY

Helen Lock Chee Yip

27 December, 1934 – 18 January, 2015

Glenhaven Memorial Chapel

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