Fong Ping Mah; Alberta's oldest citizen
Hyfler/Rosner
June 28, 2006 Wednesday
EDMONTON (CP) -- Alberta's oldest living resident died this
week at 110, leaving 17 great-great-grandchildren and a
legacy that began in a bamboo hut at the end of the 1800s.
Fong Ping Mah wore silk dresses in the '20s and hid her
family in caves when the Japanese occupied China during the
Second World War.
She died Sunday after nearly 50 years of living in Edmonton,
the last decade in a nursing home.
Family members sat by her bedside, recounting their
favourite stories and holding her hands as she slipped away
due to pneumonia.
A stylish woman, Mah would get weekly pedicures and never
left her room without her lipstick and compact.
"Always look your best and do your best," said granddaughter
Winnie Mah, recalling her grandmother's advice.
Mah's story was the focus of several media items last year
during Alberta's centennial celebrations, when she met
then-prime-minister Paul Martin.
She was born on Sept. 28, 1895, in Kwangtung province of
southern China. Around 1920, she married Lip Gar Mah in an
arranged marriage.
He had immigrated to Edmonton in 1910, doing menial jobs to
make a living. But he was also forced to pay a $500 head tax
under Canadian law and leave his new bride behind.
Lip Gar Mah visited his wife every few years and fathered
two daughters and adopted a son.
"They were considered well off," Winnie Mah said, because
they built a brick house when most houses in China were
built from wood or straw.
In 1923, the year their first child was born, Canada's
Chinese Immigration Act barred all Chinese immigrants from
Canada and extinguished any hope of Fong Ping Mah joining
her husband in the near future.
Fong Ping Mah was finally able to immigrate to Canada in
1958 and reunite with her husband in Edmonton. The two had
not seen each other for 19 years.
"It just became one long honeymoon for them afterwards,"
said Winnie Mah.
The reunited couple lived a simple life in Edmonton.
After her husband died in 1985, Mah lived alone until age
99, when she moved into a nursing home.
She shared a room with her son, who had been partially
paralyzed by strokes. He died in 2001 at 72.
Mah had 15 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren and 17
great-great-grandchildren.