Ben Yen Chow

周炳恩

Kevin,

Thank you for set up the website and let me know the chow family tree. I have a problem, I don’t know can you help me?

My grandfather have gone to Canada to work around 1915 and was dead around 1958-1959. I have never seen my grandfather’s look because I was born after he dead. My father told me my grandfather went to Canada to work because he wanted to provide a best living to their families. But I am unhappy that even my grandfather dead, no one know where is he buried. About 10 years before, one of my father’s relative who told my father that my grandfather was passed away in St. Joseph Hospital and buried in Fraser Lawn. I don’t know whether it is true or false. I have tried to go to Vancouver to check but the government told me that they have no record.

So Kevin, Can you help me to check although I know it is very difficult and not easy to find, as a granddaughter, I don’t want my grandfather used his half life in Canada due to give a best living to his family and now he dead, no one know where he buried.

I can only provide very little information to you, the informations are as follows :

• My grandfather’s name and address in China.
• 周炳恩 (CHOW BING YAN) 廣東省開平縣茅崗忠心里
• Name and address in Canada
  • 周瑞沾 (CHOW YEN) BLUBBER BAY B.C. CANADA
  • He had a relative called 周家潤, his mailing address was BOSTON CAFE, 199, BRUNSWICK STREET, HALIFAX NO. 8 CANADA.

I know only this information, it is very difficult to find. Anyway I hope you can help me.

I am looking forward to your reply. Thank you.

Best Regards

Renita Chau

This email of March 2, 2003 set me down a road I’ve never travelled before. It looked so straight forward because everything seemed to be in order:

1. there is a name with the properly spelling
2. the approximate years of death
3. there is a Mount St. Joseph Hospital which is known locally as the Chinese hospital
4. the cemetery (Fraser Lawn) is a bit tricky as there are three local possible cemeteries
   1. Fraser Cemetery in New Westminister
   2. Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burnaby (the lawn part of the name given by Renita)
   3. Mountain View Cemetery on Fraser Street, Vancouver

Of course, life is never this simple and easy. After exhausting all obvious and potential leads I finally turned to my friend, Al Chinn, for advice. He suggested a search of the online databases. A search on Google for “cemeteries in BC” eventually led me to the BC Vital Statistics web site. Searching for “Yen Chow” and “Bing Yan Chow” returned no hit but a search for “Chow” returned three hits. One of them was Ben Yen Chow, September 9, 1957.

One of my contacts during the search was Mr. Bak Lip Chow from the Vancouver Chow Association. He said Ocean View Cemetery was a popular burial site with the Chinese despite the fact it is located in Burnaby. Armed with this information I contacted Ocean View Cementery and inquired about Ben Yen Chow. They checked their records and confirmed Mr. Ben Yen Chow, indeed, is buried there.

Since then Mr. Ben Yen Chow’s descendants had traveled from Toronto to pay their respects. I was able to meet and accompany them during their most recent visit. They not only bought flowers to honour their father, grandfather and great grandfather but also placed incense sticks on all surrounding graves. For many of these tombs, if not all, this was the first time in a long time that somebody pays such respect. I found this to be very heartening gesture.

After visiting the gravel site and seeing over a hundred single plot burials there I can’t helped but wonder how of them are waiting to be discovered by their descendants? Since it is estimated that 82,000 had paid the head tax, is 25% or20,500 a good guess? Or is 41,000 closer to the truth? May be higher still? And how many people are in a situation similar to Renita Chau and her family searching for the gravels or their ancestors?

Tags: Blubber Bay, British Columbia, Kaiping, New Westminister, Ocean View Cemetery, St. Joseph Hospital, Toronto, Vancouver

This entry was posted on Monday, October 16th, 2006 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Chinese Diaspora, Chow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.