“Deep in the Mother Lode country of Northern California situated next to the Feather River stands Oroville, a town appropriately named for the gold ore that was mined there since the early days of the California gold rush. In the late 1800s, Oroville was a bustling community that included gold miners, railroad workers, and small businesses that served the influx of Chinese laborers and transplants from the East coast. This was the setting where a young man of Chinese ancestry, Edward Wah Gee, was born in January 1910. He grew up here helping out in the family's business that consisted of a general store and boarding house for Chinese workers. Ed's father, Quong Leong Gee, started the business located at 1698 Broderick Street in Oroville after arriving from China's Guangdong province.
Tall, good looking, with a prosperous business, Quong Leong was considered an especially eligible bachelor in those days. In 1908 at age 48, he married a local girl, Mary Tom, who was only 19 at the time. It was an arranged marriage as was the custom in those days. Mary's family had come to California from China back in 1851, and they settled in Marysville, a neighboring town just south of Oroville. Quong Leong and Mary had two sons, with Ed being the eldest. The younger son, Herb was born two years after Ed, but Herb never knew his father because Quong Leong died only 3 months before Herb was born. Their mother saw that their future hinged on them getting a good education. So she sent the two boys to San Francisco to attend junior and senior high schools and to learn Chinese in the evenings. The two boys lived by themselves at the Stockton Hotel between Clay and Sacramento in San Francisco's Chinatown. They both graduated from Galileo High School and afterwards attended San Mateo Junior College and UC Berkeley.
It was at San Mateo Junior College that Ed met Mabel Lee, a San Francisco native raised in China. After graduation in civil engineering in 1934, finding work was hard for Ed because of the depressed economy and racial discrimination. So he went to China and worked for the railroad in Guangzhou, while Mabel taught English at Lingnan University, now known as Zhongshan University. Ed and Mabel married in Nanjing late in 1934, but their stay in China was short-lived because of the Japanese invasion of China. They returned to the US in 1938 with two young sons in tow. After arrival back in California, Ed felt he had to find a way to support his family without depending on the job market. He was virtually penniless at the time and would need to borrow money to get started. Nevertheless, he made the decision to go into real estate in San Francisco Chinatown where the family relocated.
In 1938 he became the first California licensed real estate broker in Chinatown. He opened his office at 838 Jackson Street across from the Chinese Hospital, and for many years served mainly the Chinese community in Chinatown. He helped many new arrivals from China find a place to live in San Francisco. His business, ably assisted by Mabel, gradually expanded to include insurance and property management. He became well known in Chinatown because of his command of English and Chinese (both Cantonese and Taishanese). He was also active in community affairs and served as president of the San Francisco Chinatown Lions Club. His real estate activities gradually reached across the Bay to Berkeley, Oakland and Fremont.”
Story from We Are California: Stories of Immigraiton and Change
Migrations
Animal 
Human 
Dance/Art