Ruby Wong – The Golden Pheasant and Her Family of Patriots
Ruby Wong and A Family of Patriots
The Ruby Wong family has a prominent history in Missoula and Helena. The iconic Golden Pheasant restaurant, started by Ruby and her partner at the beginning of WW2, lasted for over 50 years and is remembered by thousands of Missoulians, including this writer. Ruby’s story is remarkable and so is the story of her children. All three of her sons served in WW2 and her daughter worked on the coast in the shipyards. After serving around the world throughout the war, her children happily joined her back in Missoula for a family celebration. All the while she successfully ran a Missoula restaurant when the odds were not in her favor.
The Golden Years (1991)
The restaurant business has been good to the Wong family
By Ginny Merriam
The night the Golden Pheasant restaurant opened, the line of customers stretched from its front door down the block to the corner of North Higgins and Pine. That February 9 was 50 years ago, and Jack Wong, who was a 19-year-old youngster helping with the grand opening of the family restaurant, remembers working until 3 a.m., serving 400 customers.
“We weren’t quite prepared, because we didn’t expect we’d have that many people at one time,” Wong recalled in a recent interview. “As we fed them, more came in. It was like a line from a movie theater.”
Pork Chop Suey was 50 cents and a Denver sandwich 25 cents. A grand Sunday dinner was 50 cents, and the Table d’Hote dinner was $1, including coffee or tea; milk was 5 cents extra. Wholesale, pork cost one and a half cents a pound.
The grand-opening feeling lasted eight or nine months, Wong said, through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7.
“It was after that that everybody had headed out to work in the Seattle shipyards,” Wong said.
“Just like it is now, with the war on there was hardly anybody moving around.”
Soon Jack and his brothers George and Fred left for military service, George in North Africa and Jack and Fred to the South Pacific. Their sister Rosie went to work in the naval yards. Their mother, Ruby Wong, and partner Kim Ming were left to carry on.
Jack’s mother told him later that she and Ming soon figured out how to run a restaurant with a staff of two; They’d let a group of customers in, then lock the door, take the orders, prepare and serve the food. When the diners were finished, they’d let them out, take a few minutes to clean up and prepare for the next bunch, then unlock the door again.
“That’s the way they operated for about six months there in ’42,” Jack said.
Jack returned on a short leave in December 1944, bringing his fiancée Marian, a Hawaiian he met when she was serving with the War Department’s Army Engineers. They were married Christmas Eve in Missoula.
When the children came back, the family closed the restaurant for a month’s vacation. In 1949, George went to Helena to start his own restaurant, and Jack stayed on to work with his mother and partner Kim Ming. The family bought out Ming in 1959. He later started Ming’s Chinese Restaurant. The competition was friendly, Jack Wong said.
“Missoula needed another restaurant anyway,” he said, “because we had more than we could handle.”
Until 1962 or ’63, the Golden Pheasant was half its present size. The south half housed Clute-Pulley Lumber and later General Appliance.
“Believe it or not, Pete Vann was going to high school then,” Jack Wong remembered, “and he was the stockroom boy.”
The family had bought the building – which was Safeway store before the Golden Pheasant – in 1957, and the expansion was overdue.
“We had outgrown our place ten-fold,” Wong said. “And back then we were the only Oriental restaurant in town.”
By that time, Ruby Wong had become something of a legend. Born in Kwantung, China, in 1899, “Grandma” Wong immigrated to Seattle with her family when she was a baby. In 1917, she traveled to Helena for an arranged marriage. In 1924, she became a widow with three small sons and an infant daughter. She came to Missoula to work with Ming, and the restaurant and her family became her life.
“Mother had a sense about her that she’d never have to write down who had what (order),” Jack Wong said. “And Mother would be able to pack about four plates on each arm.”
“Grandma” Wong, who died in 1984, also became known for her ability to remember customers’ names and details of their lives.
“We’ve been here long enough that we’re into the third generation,” Jack Wong said.
“Mother used to sit here and say, ‘I remember you when you were a little girl.’ And that person’s a grandparent.”
The Golden Pheasant weathered changes in the downtown business climate through the years with little trouble, Jack Wong said. He remembers when the first modern shopping center, Holiday Village, was built, and then Tremper’s shopping center.
“Trempers still didn’t faze the downtown any,” Wong said. “It wasn’t until JC Penney moved out that it really started to affect it. We still held our own. I would say it was only about two years ago that we started feeling it.”
Wong said the restaurant rides on its 50-year-old reputation.
“And it’s the clientele we’ve built up over the years,” he said. “A lot of the older people who come in, I remember them as teen-agers.”
Wong, 68, still runs the restaurant with his wife, Marian. Their grandson Jeremy Wiles is their night manager. Jack cooks, and Marian does the ordering and the bookkeeping. Jack’s very active in the Shrine Club, and he and Marian work every day.
Marian married into the restaurant that Christmas Eve in 1944 and began helping in the business after their children were grown.
“It’s been lovely, and it’s given us a good living,” she said. “All in all, the restaurant has been good. We’ve made many friends, and it’s been happy.”
The above article appeared in The Missoulian on February 20, 1991.
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Pioneering restauranteur dies at age 85
By Evelyn King of the Missoulian
With the death Saturday of a tiny woman born in China, a Missoula institution is gone.
“Grandma” Ruby Wong, 85, who established the Golden Pheasant restaurant 43 years ago, died in a local hospital.
Mrs. Wong was born July 3, 1899, in Kwantung, China, and came to this country as an infant. Her family settled in Seattle, where her father was an interpreter for the U.S. Immigration Service.
In 1917, the young Chinese girl traveled to Helena to marry a man who was both a merchant and farmer. The marriage was a traditional family arrangement, and her husband was 25 years her senior. He died seven years later.
She began learning the restaurant business by working as a cashier and waitress in Helena cafes to support her young children. In an interview last year, Mrs. Wong said that her children were always the most important thing to her, so she decided to move to Missoula and start a restaurant.
The three sons were all young men when the Wongs moved in 1940 and started remodeling an old building in downtown Missoula. The original café building at 318 North Higgins was constructed by C. P. Higgins in the 1870’s.
She is survived by three sons, Jack J., Missoula, and George O. and Fred O. Wong, both of Helena; one daughter, Rosie W. Traver, Missoula; three sisters, Emma Sing, Washington, D.C., Anne Wing, Seattle, and Mabel Wong, Portland; two brothers, John Chinn, Portland, and Fred Chinn, Vancouver, Wash.; 10 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Wong On Kee in 1924.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Christian Life Center, 337 Stephens Ave., under the direction of Squire Simmons & Carr Funeral Home. Pastor Ken Harrington will officiate. . . Pallbearers will be: Dennis Cronin, Kenneth Hewitt, Howard H. Frette, Russell Brooks, Dr. John Minckler and John Felton. Graveside services and burial will be Thursday at 1 p.m. the Forestvale Cemetery in Helena.
The family requests that memorials be donations to the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children in Spokane in place of flowers.
The above obituary appeared in The Missoulian on December 11, 1984
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Chinese Boy Home From Pacific (Jack Wong)
After 15 months of service in the Navy, and 13 months of activity with the fleet in the South Pacific, Jack O. Wong, 22, steward, attached to the flagship of his squadron commander, is home on leave visiting his mother, Mrs. Ruby On Wong, of the Golden Pheasant café here. The young Chinese sailor has participated in seven major engagements in the Pacific waters. He was accompanied to Montana by Wallace Wong, Helena Chinese boy. They enlisted together in the summer of 1942. Both had a month and a half of service before going to sea. The Helena boy is a cook, second class, and he participated in six major engagements.
For heroic action in the battle of Kula gulf last July during which the cruiser Helena was sunk, the ship on which they served won a presidential unit citation.
“We picked up survivors from the Helena,” Jack Wong said Wednesday. “She was the fightingist ship in the Navy. Our ship participated in much of the fighting in the Central Solomons campaign.”
During the course of their sea duty, they visited the Hawaiians, New Zealand and Australia, as well as many of the small islands of the Pacific. Jack Wong said he was mighty happy to be home to visit his mother, whom he had not seen since going into service, and to get his feet on the ground in Missoula. “You know out there a sailor does not get his feet on the ground. He’s on ship, and Uncle Sam’s fighting naval men are on their toes all of the time.”
The two Wong boys, who are not relatives, are to leave early in February for a naval training station at Newport, R. I., where they are to attend school. Steward Jack Wong will go to Helena Friday to visit his former home there for a few days.
Jack Wong, and a brother, Sergeant George O. Wong, 26, with the Army air forces in Italy, were the only two Missoula Chinese boys of military age – and both enlisted. However, the mother has three sons in the service. A son, Fred Wong, 24, who resided in Helena, enlisted in the Seabees at Helena last fall.
Mrs. Wong is one of the happiest women in Missoula right now to have one of her three sons home from the battle zones, and she is elated at how hale and hearty he seems after being in the battle waters for so many months. “Jack is my youngest boy and he has not lost any of the determination that he had when he enlisted for service,” she said. “George, the oldest, enlisted in the Army air force right after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japs.”
The article above appeared in The Daily Missoulian on January 27, 1944.
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Chinese Boy Busy Labor Day (George Wong)
Labor day was a memorable one for Sergeant George Wong, Missoula Chinese boy, in that it was the first holiday he has spent at home since he enlisted in the Army air force since Christmas of 1941. He went into the Army immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japs, and he was with the first AAF group to go overseas.
The holiday found him busy at the Golden Pheasant café, in which he is a partner with Kim Ming and his mother, Mrs. Ruby Wong. He was associated in the Chinese restaurant here when he went into the service.
[George] believes he is the first Chinese boy to land on African soil in the war with the air forces. He served also in Sicily, Italy and Egypt and for the last year of his service, was in India. He was a crew chief in the air force, and saw much action on that front in the war.
On the fighting front holidays were just like any other day, the Chinese boy said, and he is quite happy to see the unconditional surrender of the Japs.
Sergeant George and his brother, Jack K. Wong, chief petty officer in the Navy, were the only two Chinese boys of Missoula eligible for military service, and the latter has been in service for three years. He is now in Virginia, where he is in Navy school. He saw action in the Pacific, and was on one of the ships which picked up survivors of the ship, Helena. He is soon eligible for discharge.
A third brother, Freddie Wong, who resided in Helena, is in the Seabees, joining up in 1944, and is now on reconstruction work on Okinawa.
Sergeant George Wong received his discharge at Fort Douglas, Utah, late in June, on the point system. “Although Labor day has been a busy one for me here, I am happy in my work – and seeing everyone else happy since the Japs threw in the sponge,” Sergeant George said. “There will be many more holidays which I will enjoy, and the successful end of the terrible conflict will make it possible for me and the American people generally to enjoy. They will be far different kinds of holidays for the American people than those spade-faced Japs had on their program for us.”
The young Chinese sergeant of the AAF was home in May on his first furlough since entering service and on that occasion his mother gave a home coming dinner for him at which his friends of his years in Missoula were gathered for a gala occasion.
The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on September 4, 1945.
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Fred On Wong
Freddie Wong, 66, long time Helena restauranteur, passed away in his home Wednesday morning following a long illness.
Mr. Wong was born in Helena on Oct. 23, 1920, to Wong On Kee and Ruby Lee. His father operated a truck farm at the old Chinese Gardens and also worked at the Union Bank Building.
Mr. Wong attended Helena schools and resided on Helena’s South Side until he entered the service in 1942.
He served with the U.S. Navy Seabees in the South Pacific during World War II and was with the first landing wave at Iwo Jima.
Upon his discharge in 1946, Mr. Wong opened the O.K. Café, one of the first restaurants on South Main. Then in 1960 he moved down the street and purchased Yat Son Chinese Restaurant and he worked there until Urban Renewal razed the district. It was his dream to rebuild on the end of town where he had spent all his life. He was proud to open his new Yat Son at 2 S. Main in September 1975.
He is survived by his wife, Ella, four sons, Fred, Steve, Mike and Jeff, all of Helena; two daughters, Crystal Shors and Peggy Wong Chamberlain, both of Helena; two brothers, George of Helena and Jack of Missoula; five grandchildren, Amy and Sara Wong, Michael Hahn and Hannah and Chanda Wong, all of Helena; and numerous nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his mother and father, a sister, Rose Traver and his brother, Wing.
Funeral Services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at the Retz Chapel, with the Rev. Dave Orendorff officiating. Burial will be in Forestvale Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be his sons and sons-in-law. Honorary pallbearers will be Red Drennon, Ray Whale, Bill Schroth, Bill George, Joe Petkewich and J. C. Jackson.
The above obituary appeared in The Independent Record (Helena) on August 13, 1987.
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F. Wong Recalls Iwo Jima Battle by Jack Gilluly
Iwo Jima – Feb. 19, 1965 – the 20th anniversary of one of the historical highlights of World War II.
“Unless you were there, there is no significance to the occasion that can be conveyed to your readers.”
This was the comment of Fred Wong, a native Montanan who owns and operates a downtown Helena restaurant. He was one of many who fought on the Pacific Island during those epic few weeks in February and March of 1945.
He, unlike thousands of his buddies, returned home to tell about it.
“You remember those guys who didn’t make it. But there’s no real significance to the occasion unless you were there,” Wong said.
Remembers it Well
“I remember it well every year about this time, not just the 20th anniversary. I had a lot of friends who were killed.”
A lot of those friends were the more than 5,000 Americans who were killed in the three and one-half weeks of intense, murderous fighting on the little heart-shaped island in the Pacific.
“There were an awful lot of Montanans who fought there, and I’m only one of lots of guys around Helena and the State who remember well those weeks in 1945,” Wong said. “There was a register book in the service club in Iwo Jima, and I saw the names of many men from around the state.
Fought Hard
Americans fought hard for that little bitty piece of land in 1945, for it was a stepping stone on the way to the conquering of Japan. From the Iwo Jima airfields, American planes could bomb the Japanese mainland and return to Iwo without refueling.
In peacetime the volcanic, sandy island has little commercial value.
The Japanese, however, fought hard to retain it for themselves. They suffered more than 19,000 casualties. Few prisoners were taken, as there were few prisoners to find. Most died in the caves and crannies they infested.
The American forces prevailed after the Marines raised the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi.
Famous Photograph
This scene provided perhaps the most famous photograph of World War II – The Associated Press picture taken by Joe Rosenthal – showing five Marines raising the colors.
Today, endless seas wash the hulks of the World War II vessels. Bones are still found in the caves, along with hand grenades and all types of guns. Concrete bunkers stick out of the terrain.
The United States still retains it with a small contingent of men.
Thousands of white crosses mark the graves of Americans who died there and in other parts of the Pacific.
The above article appeared in the Independent Record (Helena) on February 21, 1965.
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George Wong: Airplane mechanic extraordinaire
World War II veteran George Wong, 88, has in his possession a citation from the U.S. War Department, signed by Chief of Staff G. C. Marshall.
It reads, in part: “The 12th Bombardment Group (M). For outstanding performance of duty in direct support of the British Eighth Army in the Middle East Campaign, from the Battle of El Alamein to the capitulation of the enemy forces in Tunisia and Sicily . . .
“The airplane crews of this organization exhibited the greatest bravery and resourcefulness, while its ground personnel, in the face of repeated enemy attacks, performed all duties with utter disregard for their personal safety.”
Wong, an assistant crew chief with the 12th Bomb Group, explained the responsibility of helping to win WWII.
“There was a lot of pressure on us, you might say, the mechanics and the maintenance crew,” he related. “We were responsible for making sure that nothing mechanical failed, because there were five or six guys on every mission whose lives depended on that plane functioning properly.”
Considering the fact that one of his B-25 bombers flew 110 successful missions, Wong must’ve been pretty good at what he did, and the foundation for his training came right here in Helena.
As a junior at Helena High in 1936, he joined the Helena Flying Cadets at Red Morrison’s Flying Service. Morrison and Bill Fahrner collaborated with the school systems in operating an aeronautics class and airplane engine mechanics training near the old Helena Airport.
According to the 1938 Vigilante yearbook, “The Helena High Flying Cadet Corps is the only organization of its kind in the United States. The corps was organized on a semi-military schedule, with an objective to teach the boys to fly and observe regulations. In 1936, they were able to purchase a two-seat biplane with dual controls.”
The Flying Cadets also helped build Morrison’s original hangar, which is still in operation to this day.
George’s parents, Won Wonk Kee and Ruby Lee, who were from China, raised four children in Helena – himself, Jack, Fred and Rose Wong.
Wong learned how to solo with the rest of the Flying Cadets, but his real forte was airplane mechanics. He enlisted into the military the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked and received his training at the aeronautical school in Shepherd Field, Texas.
As a first sergeant in the Army Air Force, Wong deployed from New York City in July 1942, on the SS Louis S. Pasteur, a former luxury liner that was converted into a transport ship. The Pasteur made the trip around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope unescorted, and Wong recalled that they were “stalked” by German submarines and sailed in a “zig-zagging pattern” to evade the U-boats. They went up through the Suez Canal and docked in Port Taufig [Suez], Egypt.
Wong remembered that they were in Casablanca when Patton landed, and that in places like Iraq and Egypt, they “used a bulldozer to plow the runway in the desert.”
Next they were transferred into the Royal Air Force, serving in the mountains of Sicily and Italy, before rejoining the 12th in North Africa. They were then transported by an “Indian Yacht” to Calcutta, serving in the jungles of the China-India-Burma (CIB) Theater. Equipped with the newer B-26s, they bombed bridges in China and helped supply the Chinese Air Force.
The outfit was then shipped to the Pacific Theater on a Navy Transport, where Wong was assigned to stand gun duty on the ship’s turrets.
At the war’s end, Wong returned stateside, where he worked part-time for Northwest Airlines. After returning to Helena, during 54 years of marriage to his wife Irene (she passed away in 2000), the couple worked together in operating George’s OK Café on North Main Street and the Chinese Kitchen on Euclid Avenue.
George Wong resides quietly by himself in retirement.
“I didn’t do too bad for a Helena kid,” Wong said. “I’ve been all over the world. It was quite an adventure, you might say.”
The above article appeared in the Independent Record (Helena) on March 24, 2005
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Rose W. (Wong)Traver
Rose W. Traver, 62, of Missoula, died Friday of heart failure at St. Patrick Hospital.
She was born Sept. 16, 1924, in Helena, to Wong On Kee and Fooly [Ruby] Lee. She began her schooling in Helena, then moved to Missoula in 1940, where she completed her education.
She married Calvin Traver in Vancouver, Wash., July 31, 1942. The couple operated glass shops in Missoula and Helena. Mr. Traver died May 12, 1986.
She is survived by a son, David Traver; and three brothers; George and Fred Wong, both of Helena, and Jack Wong, Missoula.
Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Calvary Chapel (the site of the former World Theater), under the direction of Squire Simmons & Craft Funeral Home. Pastor Jim Ramsey will officiate.
Interment will follow at 4 p.m. at the Forestvale Cemetery in Helena.
Viewing will be at the funeral home on Tuesday from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
The above obituary appeared in the Missoulian on September 22, 1986.
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A correction to the above obituary appeared in the Missoulian on the following day September 23, 1986.
“Due to incorrect information provided [by] the Missoulian, the obituary that ran Monday misidentified Mrs. Traver’s mother, Ruby Lee, who later became Ruby Wong. Mrs. Wong was known in Missoula for her long association with the Golden Pheasant restaurant.”
Jack J. Wong Sr.
Missoula – Jack J. Wong Sr. 82, of Missoula, passed away April 2, 2005, of natural causes at the Village Health Care Center.
He was born Sept. 11, 1922, in Helena to Wong On Kee and Ruby L. Chinn. Jack was educated in Helena. In June 1942, he joined the U. S. Navy and rose to the rank of chief petty officer during World War II. He served on the destroyer USS Farenholt during a daring rescue of survivors of the USS Helena in shark-infested waters. The Farenholt’s captain later received the Medal of Honor for this rescue.
While in the Navy, Jack met his future bride, Marian Luke, in Pearl Harbor, where she worked at Headquarters, Overseas Command Pacific. On Dec. 24, 1944, they were married. They moved to Norfolk, Va., where he served as staff to the vice admiral of the Atlantic Command and she served with the Army Transportation Corp. Jack was demobilized in October 1945, after which he and Marian returned to Missoula. They had three children, Jack Jr., Marlene and Richard.
Upon returning from Virginia, Jack joined the American Legion Post 27, where he attained the rank of vice commander. In the 1950s, one of his favorite activities was showing movies to local children; he owned an 8 mm movie projector and would rent movies and cartoons for monthly showings. Jack was recently honored for having been a loyal and dedicated member of American Legion Post 27 for over 50 years.
Jack was a 50-year member of the Masons and a member of the Algeria Shrine, Bagdad Shrine, and Scottish Rite. He was also a member and past director of the Royal Order of Jesters. His pride and joy was the Western Montana Shrine Club Midget Patrol, which he originated, promoted and participated in for 45 years. The little yellow patrol cars appeared in parades all over the United States and in Canada. He was a tireless fund-raiser, each year selling many Shrine Circus tickets to give to Missoula’s children. His great life project was his work for the Shriner’s Hospitals, sponsoring medical treatment for many children. Over the years, people often told family members that they could now walk thanks to Jack’s sponsorship and the excellent treatment they received.
In 1941, Jack’s mother, Ruby Wong (known by many as “Grandma Wong”) opened the Golden Pheasant restaurant in downtown Missoula. And when Jack came to Missoula after the war, he took part in the family business. The restaurant became a popular downtown landmark for many. After Grandma Wong’s death in 1984, Jack continued to own and operate the Golden Pheasant until he retired in 1992. The family business continues today at 318 N. Higgins Ave. as Feruqi’s.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Ruby L. Wong and Wong On Kee; sister and brother-in-law, Rose and Calvin Traver, brother and sister-in-law, Fred Sr. and Ella Wong; and sister-in-law, Irene Wong.
He is survived in Missoula by his wife, Marian; daughter and son-in-law, Marlene and William H. Wiles; grandson, Matthew Wiles; nephew and niece-in-law, David and Cathy Traver; and grandniece, Janet Rose Traver. In California, he is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Jack J. Jr. and Susan Wong, grandson, Thomas Wong; granddaughters, Alexandra and Kirsten Wong; grandson and granddaughter-in-law, Jeremy Wiles and Kelly Kelleher; and grandson Christopher Wiles. In Washington, he is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Richard F. and Susan Wong; and grandson, Lucas Wong. In Helena, he is survived by brother, George Wong; nephews Fred Jr., Steven, Michael and Jeff Wong; and nieces, Crystal Shors and Peggy Chamberlain and their respective families.
Visitation will be Saturday, April 9, 2-5 p.m. at Garden City Funeral Home in Missoula. Graveside services will be held at 2 p.m., Monday, April 11, at the Forestvale Cemetery, Helena. The family suggests memorials to the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled and Burned Children, 911 W. Fifth Ave., Spokane, Wa. 99204-2901.
The above obituary appeared in the Missoulian on April 6, 2005.
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