Old Missoula

A H Hay Spends New Year’s Day In City of Boyhood

A.H. Hay, who was reared in Missoula by Judge Frank Woody, was in Missoula Thursday, the first New Year’s day he had spent in the Garden city in 37 years. Mr. Hay, who is of Chinese extraction, is one of the best-known men in Montana.

He conducted a restaurant at Kalispell for many years, and now has charge of all the railway cafes along the west end of the Great Northern. He left Missoula for Kalispell yesterday.

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on January 3, 1930.

 

The article below about Ah Hay appeared in The Daily Inter Lake of Kalispell, Mt., on April 19, 1964.

 

Old-Timers Remember Ah Hay

Editor’s Note: Many old-timers in Kalispell will recall Ah Hay, early-day businessman who played an important part in the growing community of Kalispell. From a March 12, 1944, clipping in Mrs. C. D. O’Neil’s scrapbook comes this recollection of him.

“An echo from the past heard only by old-timer residents sounded this week in Missoula when news was received here of the death in China of A. H. Hay, or more properly Ah Hay, who came to the city when both he and the community were young.

“Ah Hay died in Hongkong, old and respected and rich, if the fortune of war in his native land to which he returned in 1939 had not deprived him of his wealth.

“Frank Woody, Helena attorney and son of Judge Frank H. Woody, prominent early-day Missoulian, reports on Hay’s death and biographical sketch.

“Ah Hay, later Americanized to A. H. Hay, came to Missoula when 15 or 16 years of age, brought from China by Ah Ping, an uncle.

“Almost immediately after arriving here Mr. Woody said, ‘Ah Hay came to my father’s family. He lived with us four or five years helping with the chores around the house and assisting my mother with the cooking and house work and going to the Missoula public school. Between attending school and being taught by my two sisters he learned to speak very good English, practically without any Chinese accent at all. He learned to write a very good hand, a grammatical letter and to read almost anything and understand it.

“After several years in the Woody household, Ah Hay had a vegetable garden on the flat where the Milwaukee passenger station is now situated. He later had a garden across the Rattlesnake and operated this and a vegetable trade for a few more years before going to Kalispell to open a Chinese store and restaurant.

“Intensely interested in politics and sports, Ah Hay was the manager of the Kalispell baseball team and took an active interest in city affairs. Money-raising committees always called on him first and says his biographer, ‘he always came through generously.’

“From Kalispell, Mr. Hay went to Troy, where he operated the lunch counter and the Great Northern Railway’s men’s hotel at Troy, Sandpoint and other places on the line. When the railroad constructed the large hotel at Blackfoot, he was placed in charge. He remained there until his return to China.

“During all the years that he was with the Great Northern, Mr. Woody recalls, Ah Hay never failed to return to Missoula for Memorial Day. He would visit the graves of old friends and visit the living.

“A shrewd business man, Ah Hay owned real estate in several Montana cities, an interest in several banks and large royalty interest in the Cut Bank field. In 1939, 70 years old, his health failing, his thoughts turned to the home of his youth and he returned there. His wife and two grandchildren were in China. His two sons were in the United States and leaving them here he went to join his wife and the grandchildren in a small village near Canton. He had disposed of his interests in this country before his departure. Arriving in China he felt that HongKong would be a safer place to live than the village and he took his family and established residence there. He believed that the Japanese could never reach that city.

“Mr. Woody said that he and members of his family received frequent letters from Ah Hay after his return to China. He wrote ‘Ah Hay had lived in this country for more than 50 years and had become accustomed to American ways of living and food. He nearly always said in his letters that the hardest thing for him to become used to was the Chinese food, and that he had to have at least one good meal a day in the city where he could get a good American meal. He was homesick to return to Montana, but felt that it was his duty to stay with his wife and grandchildren until the war was over.

“’We did not hear from him after the Japanese took HongKong until recently when we got word of his death.

“’His many old friends,’ Mr. Woody concluded, ‘I know will be sorry to learn of his death. I have written this just to indicate what kind of man and citizen he was in the thought that it will be of interest to his many old associates in Missoula and Kalispell.’”

 

Ah Hay is also the subject of some of the historical background efforts in Kalispell, Mt.  He is mentioned on one of the walking historical tours in that city:

“Historical tours in Kalispell, Montana feature the Montana Hotel, built 1910; Currently: The Montana Building 142 1st Avenue East. The original businesses on the 2nd Street East side of the Montana Hotel were a “metropolitan cigar store” and Hay’s Café. The latter, run by A.H. Hay, operated out of this building from 1910-1918 and again from 1929-1933. Alfred H. Hay was a well-known restaurateur and businessman of the Flathead Valley. Born in China, he came to Missoula when 15 or 16 to join his uncle. Soon he began working as a cook in a private residence, where he was the “wonder of Missoula” for the dishes he prepared. Hay settled in the Flathead Valley in 1893, where he was best known for his Kalispell café and his Oriental goods store. For a number of years he also supervised the restaurants and some hotels along the railroad line from Essex, Montana to Seattle.”

https://mhs.mt.gov/Portals/11/shpo/docs/KalispellWalkTour.pdf

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