S.C. The Scientist

Before landing in Houston, I need to fill you in on a bit of S.C.'s background.

You already know that he was born and raised in Hong Kong. He was born in 1922, which made him six and half years older than I.

The only son of Mr. and Mrs. I.S. Wan (that is the Cantonese pronunciation of Yin). Beside him, there are two girls in the family, one a couple years older than he, Mona, and one ten years younger, Dum, my schoolmate. 

His father had a degree in Chemistry, from London, I think. (I do know that three of his brothers had all been educated in London - two of them were M.D.s, and one was a dentist.) He was a Chemist, a Teacher, and an Educator, employed by HK Government. Apparently what he did for Education in HK earned him the honor of being awarded an Order of the British Empire.

Grandfather Wan was one of the first Chinese physicians in HK, as I mentioned before. There were eight children, six were living when I married into the family.
My father-in-law was the oldest one. Number Two Aunt, a spinster, was a private English Teacher, very smart and very kind. (She certainly would have been an University Graduate had she been born later.) Number Three Uncle, a medical doctor, divorced. (There may be a daughter.) He worked on cruise ships. A lady's man - very charming. Number Five Uncle was also a medical doctor, married at that time, I believe. Number Seven Uncle was a dentist, married with one son. Number Eight Aunt, the baby of the family, was a spinster? I was told later, that she was married once. But she soon went home and refused to go back to the husband's family. No one dared say much about it. (Number Four and Number Six had passed away. I don't know any of the details.)

When the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, S.C.'s family had to flee. S.C. was a first year student at HKU. He had to quit school, of course. At the age of 18, he fled to the interior of China. I believe he went to the War Time Capital of Chungking. Mona was in the interior of China for a while, too. The family was separated and lost touch with one another.

His parents and Dum were in the countryside in HK. I was told that his father had to bury money and some other valuables in the fields. They lost their home, went through near starvation, and suffered quite a bit.

S.C. tried to study at the University in Chungking and had a tough time, since he could not understand much of the dialect people used in Chungking. 

Food was scarce.
Living conditions were very poor.
He lost contact with the family.
Communication was impossible.
So, at 18, he was on his own and had to fend for himself.

When he had the chance to sign up to become an Interpreter for training Chinese pilots, working for the U.S. and the Chinese Government, he jumped at the chance.
He was with the U.S. Air Force.
Later, he and the other interpreters were flown in those Military Planes to the U.S. - flying over the Himalaya Hump was not a good experience. He was terribly air sick.
He and the others did make it to Bakersfield (?), California.

Among the Interpreters, there was a young man from Macao (a Portuguese Port not far from Hong Kong.), C.C. Huang.
C.C. and S.C. became friends, that friendship lasted a lifetime.
C.C. was our sponsor when we applied for immigration to the U.S. We stayed with C.C. and his wife Elsie, when we came to the U.S. In Houston, to be exact.

Elsie is what we call an ABC - American Born Chinese.

Anyway, I think that I mentioned that WWII ended not too, too long  after S.C. came to the States. And he opted to stay in the U.S. and go to School. So, he went to the University of Texas in Austin.

By then, he did reconnect with his family. His father had returned to HK and tried to rebuild his life with the family in HK.

As for S.C., unfortunately, during that first year at UT, he contracted T.B., and had to drop out of school - once again.
For months, he was hospitalized. Recuperating in a sanitarium, he met two spinster sisters, the Seymours. The Seymours, both school teachers, I believe, took a liking to him, and practically adopted him.

With their moral support, and loving letters from his parents in HK, and good medical care, he got back on his feet, and later resumed his studies at UT. 
Eventually, he received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Microbiology.

When I met him, he was working  at Baylor University, Houston, TX, doing research on Rabies.