Shared by Ron Young, former OCA APAA NE treasurer

November 18, 1910 -August 9, 2008

 

Joseph Eng Young was born under the last Joseph Eng Young was born under the last Chinese emperor, in Jianghe, a new village in northern Taishan, convenient for his father, NG Mun Wei, a sojourner, who returned from California every so often to visit the family. NG Mun Wei had moved from the ancestral village of Gangmei, Kaiping, where the genealogy books trace the male line back to NG Gee Sui, of the Spring and Autumn period, his 67th great grandfather.

On his next return trip after Joseph was born, NG Mun Wei contracted an epidemic disease. As a result, Joseph became an orphan. His grandfather, who had come back from a successful stint helping to build the Transcontinental railroad, took responsibility for Joseph's care. When his grandfather passed on, his second Uncle adopted him and arranged for him to come to Newark, New Jersey where both his second Uncle and his third Uncle had laundries.

In 1922, at the age of 12, Joseph Eng Young came from China, traveling by sea from Hong Kong to Vancouver, and then by rail to Halifax. He then took a coastal steamer to New York, after spending about a month in Ellis Island.

Joseph settled in Newark's Chinatown and lived in the back of laundries. To earn his passage money, he ironed handkerchiefs. He was so short that he had to stand on a box to reach the ironing board. The laundry was so small that he had to sleep on the ironing board at night.

Joseph attended grade school near Newark's Chinatown. On Sundays he attended Sunday School, sometimes two different denominations, when they did not conflict in time. In this way, he learned English along with the Bible. He was baptized Joseph Eng at Peddie Memorial Baptist Church on Broad Street. His favorite hymn was "Bringing in the Sheaves".

After he finished reimbursing his Uncles for the passage money, Joseph went to work at a Chinese restaurant in Newark. When he first started at 15, he had to work in the kitchen, because he was still under age. When he got a little older, he was allowed to be a bus boy and then, a substitute waiter, while the regular waiters had their days off. He made a lot of money on weekends. On weekday evenings he went to various night schools.

Joseph would hit the books during slack periods at the restaurant. It was tough. He would have to look up many words in his English-Chinese dictionary. In the daytime when business was slow, many of the waiters who were college students from China, helped him learn English.

Joseph traveled to Stewart Automobile School in New York for practical training in automobile mechanics, receiving a certificate in 1927. He also went to Chamberlain School, a small private school in Brooklyn just to study English.

For about six years, Joseph worked at Globe Restaurant on Broad Street during lunchtime, then attended Newark Technical School in the evening, studying Math, English, and technical subjects. But he realized the night school program would take him eight more years to complete.

Then the stock market crash came, and he realized it was the right time to apply to study Engineering full time at Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana. At that time, Tri-State had four quarter sessions and accepted students with unusual backgrounds from all over the world. It had an intensive engineering program where you went to school all year and could earn your bachelors degree in two years.

Joseph hurried to withdraw his savings the day before President Roosevelt called for the bank holiday. At the Howard Savings Institution, he stood on a long line that wound around the block. At one point, the bank ran out of cash, even though they had plenty of assets. They had to make a quick arrangement with the Prudential Insurance Company, which was located just across the street. The bank employees went across the street and rolled wheelbarrow loads of cash from the insurance company to the bank, deliberately parading in front of the people on line to inspire confidence in the bank. Fortunately, he got the money in time to leave the next day for Indiana, where he earned his B. S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1934.

Joseph came back to the New York area with a college degree, but there was very little work. He could occasionally earn a little money helping out in one Chinese restaurant or another. Not content with this situation, he then took a one-year course in airplane and engine mechanics at Casey Jones School of Aeronautics, in Newark, and worked as a waiter at the nearby Globe Restaurant, on weekends. A fellow student was his future wife's cousin, Hen Sang.

After completing his first course, Joseph continued his studies at the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics in Newark, studying aircraft repair, hoping that the training would prove useful once conditions stabilized in China. As a trained airplane mechanic, he sat in the second seat of a small biplane from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to meet a General who fought a heroic battle to retard the Japanese Invasion.

Fortunately, FDR and other Americans decided to help the Chinese cause and a breakthrough occurred. An American firm was finally willing to hire a Chinese Engineer! In 1936 a Mr. Couse had moved his business from the South West to the Newark area and formed a company to develop a mobile aircraft maintenance facility. This maintenance vehicle would be a big truck packed with all sorts of equipment for repairing airplanes. You could just drive it up to some remote landing strip and get right to work.

Mr. Couse envisioned a large market in China, what with the primitive transportation system, Japanese war, and Roosevelt's willingness to spend money. He made this unprecedented move because he thought that having a Chinese Engineer on his staff would help in marketing. So all of the Chinese Casey Jones graduates went in to meet Mr. Couse. Joe got the job because he was super-qualified, having studied everything he could think of, including welding, which happened to be what was really needed at that stage.

So his personal depression came to an end.

Gradually, as the war effort built up, other Chinese and those in the general society were able to get jobs; and the depression ended as World War II began. As he was in the vanguard of this effort Joe was attractive to the small number of Chinese-American girls in the New York area. He met Alice, and decided to settle here permanently.

On June 1, 1940, Joseph married Alice Bo-Goon Moy of N. Y. Chinatown, a graduate of N.Y.U.

They first lived on Oliver Street near New York's Chinatown for almost two years, then moved with their 6 month-old son, Ronald, to live at Bradley Court, a new housing project for defense workers in the Vailsburg section of Newark, NJ. Joe was a volunteer air raid warden evenings and weekends.

The family lived at Bradley Court for 14 years. When Bradley Court was converted to low income housing, they were evicted, and had to work through issues of discrimination against Chinese, when buying a house at 95 Pine Grove Terrace in their neighborhood school district. By then, there were three more children, Judith, Linda, and Allan.

Joe worked at Couse Laboratories for nine years until the end of the war when they closed. During this period, he received several development patents. The equipment they developed was deployed during World War II in such places as the Burma Road and remote Pacific Island landing strips. He also was rewarded for a key design feature for a mobile high boom for a secret device that turned out to be a radar mount suitable for use on Pacific Islands during the War.

Later, Joe worked a typical engineering career at various places such as Bendix Aviation, China Motors, U.S. Tool Co., Conmar, Weldotron, as a draftsman, designer, and engineer. He was required to retire in 1975 at age 65 as an engineer at Westinghouse Electric in Bloomfield, just a month short of qualifying for a pension. Since he did not work long enough at any of the companies to qualify for a real pension, he found a part time job to supplement Social Security.

After Alice retired in 1982 they moved to New Hyde Park to live with their second daughter, Linda Joe, and her family, and became active in the community. They were very active in the Senior Centers, first at Great Neck, and later at New Hyde Park and Herricks. They also participated in many Elder Hostel programs, never repeating a location, but scheduling many near the Boston area so they could visit family located there. They outreached to the greater community, explaining Chinese customs during Chinese New Year celebrations and during Elder Hostel show-and-tell sessions.

Joe and his wife Alice were also active in the Long Island Chinese Circle, Chinese Center of Long Island, and Organization of Chinese Americans - Long Island Chapter. Joe did sculptures, paintings, line dancing, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, etc. Both also served their civic duty as election workers at the polls.