Mrs. Amy Ngo Yang

Amy was born August 29, 1922 in Ho Nam Le, Hoi Ping County, Guangduong Province, China

Services will be held Saturday, June 9, 2018 at Greenoaks Memorial Park

9595 Florida Blvd., Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70815

Visitation 8:00AM- 10:00AM at Greenoaks Memorial Chapel.

Celebration Of Life Services 10:00AM.

Burial will follow in Greenoaks Memorial Park

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.Greenoaksfunerals.com for the Yang family.

Amy Ngo Yang, Her Story

As a child, Amy Ngo Yang dreamed of joining an opera troop and running away from the small Chinese village of Ho Nam Le in Hoiping County where her father, Bain Yen Ngo, was a physician and her mother, Wen Fong Chow, a midwife.

But being a dutiful daughter, the oldest of five children, she remained at home until, at 18 in 1940, she married a young engineer, Sun You Wong, who had returned to China from the U.S. to help build the Burma Road during China’s war with Japan. As World War II ground on, he worked on the vital road project while she taught school in China’s Kunming Province. After the war, he was transported back to the United States. Because Amy was not yet a U.S. citizen, she had to wait two years in Hong Kong, and finally in 1946, she was allowed to join him in Helena, Montana. On her three-week voyage across the Pacific Ocean on a U.S. cargo ship named Candlestick, she augmented her meager English with the help of a British woman who gave her English lessons. Amy and Sun’s time together was fruitful but short. Sun You Wong, who contracted tuberculosis while working in China, died in 1952.

Amy and her two young daughters moved to Greenville, Mississippi to live with her extended family. Amy, who had attended business school in Montana, ran the cash register in the Chow family grocery. Missing her sisters, she united with her second Sister Chie Nown Lee and her family two years later in the South Texas town of Pharr.

In 1957, a mutual friend suggested that she and David C. Yang, a professor at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi correspond with each other. Their letters, which she still had at the time of her death, led to them meeting and marrying in 1958. The new family bloomed in their years in Hattiesburg. 1966 the family moved to Baton Rouge, LA after David accepted a teaching position in the LSU Psychology Department. They became active members of Southside Baptist Church and, as life partners, were active in the Chinese Student Association, helping LSU foreign students and families adapt to their new lives away from home. When “Aunt Amy” travelled and visited family, the kids could expect stories, wise advice, and homemade almond pound cake and cookies. While in Baton Rouge, in 1976 the Yangs lost their elder daughter, Lelan Wong Herrell, at the age of 29 to cancer.

David Yang died in 1985, shortly after retiring from LSU. Amy remained in Baton Rouge supported by their close friends, travelling often to Honolulu to care for her new grandson Matthew. Eventually she moved to Dallas, near her sister, Tina Ngo Lam and brother Wilson Ngo, and their famiies, then later back to Pharr, Texas. In 2002 she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to be close to her daughter, Letah Yang Lee, and her family.

Amy loved visiting her sisters. They laughed for hours sharing life stories. Amy shared her stories about China with the young and the old alike. She loved Chinese opera, reading Chinese history, watching historical Chinese movies, American movies and musicals. She graciously share her special talents with her friends and family: cooking Thanksgiving turkey and Chinese dinners, baking, sewing couture clothes, making Christmas stockings for new family members, and crocheting an afghan for each of her nieces and nephews. She enjoyed travelling to visit relatives and after China allowed American visitors in the 1970’s, she returned multiple times to visit the historical Chinese sites and the beautiful cities of Soochow, and especially Hangzhou, which was her favorite.

Born in the Province of Guangdong, China on August 29, 1922, Amy’s winding road of earthly adventures ended peacefully at the age of 95 in Honolulu on May 7, 2018. Her body will be laid to rest next to her husband in Greenoaks Memorial Park, Baton Rouge.

She is survived by her daughter Letah Yang Lee (Ernest); grandson, Matthew S. Lee; brother Wilson Wai Sun Ngo; sister, Cathleen Chui Ling Ngo Lo; 10 nieces and nephews and 12 grandnieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, David C. Yang; daughter, Lelan Wong Herrell; and sisters Chie Nown Lee and Tina Chui Ting Lam. Pallbearers will be Wally Lam, Hulen Lam, Patrick Lo, Michael Lo, Gary Pang, Jason Ngo.

Family and Friends will say aloha on June 9, 2018 to Amy Chui Wah Ngo Yang, whose intelligence, resilience, and love of family led her through international turbulence and personal hardship to a life filled with Christian faith and familial love and joy.

In Lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Camp Kesem, a non-profit summer support camp for children whose parent have or had cancer. Amy’s grandniece, Kimmy Wong, is a Coordinator, Unit leader, and counselor every summer for Camp Kesem, Austin Texas. Info: Campkesem.org Donate.kesem.org/kimmywong