Shu-Shih Yung

Born on June 14, 1936 in Shanghai to Mr. Jingzhou Chu (Qu), an economist from Hubei province, and his wife, Diqing Xu, a banker from Anhui, Shu-Shih’s wartime childhood was full of memories of sorting pebbles from rice, “goofing off” during air raids, and electricity rationing.

Her family moved to Taipei in 1946 when her father was commissioned to establish a more stable currency—the New Taiwan Dollar in use today. She remembered being different from the Taiwanese kids and having to be escorted home during the 228 Incident.

She graduated high school in 1954 and tested into National Taiwan University where she graduated with a degree in plant science. Though she grew up attending church and her parents practiced family devotions at home, she became convinced of Christianity, citing Psalm 19:12 as most influential, during her sophomore year in college and was baptized. While many of her peers immigrated to the U.S. directly after graduation, she knew she needed experience living on her own before moving abroad and spent a year in Tainan working peaceably in the lab of a notoriously cantankerous professor who recommended her to Cornell University.

In 1959, Shu-Shih took a plane to Alaska, then to Minnesota where her older brother was studying and later transferred to Cornell where she earned her masters in 1962 with her thesis on maize breeding. She then moved to Chicago to pursue a doctorate which she abandoned prior to completing her dissertation in order to go to nursing school which had been her heart’s desire for years, completing her degree in 1966.

In Chicago, she met Shu-Chien Yung, a funny, hard-working engineering student, and they married in 1967. The new couple hosted or sponsored all six of Shu-Chien’s siblings and his mother for varying durations up to several years as they became citizens. While she worked med-surg at Mother Cabrini Hospital, they welcomed daughter Jane in 1969 and daughter Delphine in 1970. After Shu-Chien finished his PhD, a 190-hundred page document which Shu-Shih meticulously typed in quintuplicate, the family moved to New Jersey and then to Richland, WA in 1975 and welcomed daughter Irene in 1976.

They bought a house on Cascade Court where they lived for 18 years, attending Southside United Protestant Church before forming a Chinese fellowship affiliated with the Christian Missionary Alliance that met in the afternoons in the same space. Shu-Shih quit professional nursing after Irene was born and took a job as a data analyst, indexing government documents on microfiche, a proto search engine wiki, she determined key words and content summaries. She retired in 1995 and in 2002, with the birth of the first of her eight grandchildren, began a ten year stint as a pro bono au pair in New York, Bellevue, and Seattle—wherever her daughters were living when they had babies.

She and Shu-Chien sold their house in Richland in 2010 and moved to Providence Point in Issaquah to be closer to their grandkids. There they found fellowship at True Light Chinese Christian Church and she made pan fried bread loaves with which to greet first time visitors. In 2020, after settling her husband into assisted living, she moved in with Delphine in Seattle where she enjoyed doing laundry, mending, and CrossFit. Shu-Chien passed in January 2024 and she was comforted by returning to worship in Mandarin at Evangelical Chinese Church. Susie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November of that same year and chose not to pursue treatment, entering into hospice care at home where she passed peaceably on January 22, 2025 at the age of 88.

Susie loved classical music—especially Chopin, roses, Reader’s Digest, Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh, and YouTube.

Shu-Shih is survived by daughters Jane, Delphine (Matt Frank), Irene (Doug Foreman); grandchildren Sophia Frank, Thalia Frank, Charlotte Dennie, Rachel Dennie, Luca Frank, Aleta Frank, Katherine Dennie, Sarah Dennie; brother Shu-Tung Chu (Alice), and in-laws Samuel Yung, Shu-Ho Yung, Shu-Ping Yung, Grace Yang, Fuzu Moy. She is preceded by her husband Shu-Chien and younger brothers Shu-Yuan and Shu-Yu Chu.

In lieu of flowers, Shu-Shih requests the reading of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in her honor.

A private family inurnment and service will be held February 15 in Seattle and July 2 in Chicago.