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Descendants Of Leong Fee - Granddaughter Margaret Vivian Leong Foong Leng
This picture was donated by Sybil de Roquigny, great granddaughter of Towkay Leong Fee and daughter of Margaret Vivian Leong Foong Leng. Her maiden name was Sybil Wong Sui Mei.
Margaret Vivian Leong Foong Leng, the second daughter of Chow Yoon Soo and Leong Eng Khean is pictured standing on the right in the photograph with a group of her school friends. They are all dressed very traditionally in the Baju Kebaya and Sarong.
A very bright student, she sat for her Standard 7 and her Junior Cambridge in Penang while staying with Dr Nagara’s daughter in Argyll Road. She then returned to Ipoh Convent (Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus) and was sitting for her last paper of the Senior Cambridge exams when the Japanese bombed Ipoh in 1941. She and her two sisters and her youngest brother went into hiding in Puchong in a rubber estate, but later returned to live in Clayton Road, Ipoh. From here they witnessed countless atrocities committed by the Japanese on the local population, particularly on the Ipoh Padang, which was a stone’s throw from their house.
She and her youngest brother joined to be nurses during the occupation. As she had done brilliantly in her Senior Cambridge exams, she approached her father, Leong Eng Khean to ask him to send her to medical school, promising that she would repay him when she graduated. He refused and chided his wife, Chow Yoon Soo, for bringing his daughter up to be “impertinent”. Every one in the family was afraid of Leong Eng Khean but Leong Foong Leng had always stood up to him. She then taught English for a while.
She married Michael Wong Kok Sang in 1946 and they have three daughters and one son, Sybil Wong Sui Mei (our donor), Benedicta Wong Sui Peng, Elaine Wong Sui Yin and Philip Wong Weng Khean. In 2010, apart from Elaine who lives in Kuala Lumpur, the other children live in Europe.
The second picture is a scan of Margaret's citizenship document, dated 1949.
To read more about Captain Leong Ming Sen's parents, Leong Eng Khean and Chow Yoon Soo, click here.
To read more about Michael Wong Kok Sang and Margaret Vivian Leong Foong Leng, click here.
To read about the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (Main Convent), click here.