Dorothy Tsui Tang

Dorothy Tsui Tang, was born 2 months premature on November 24, 1919 in Jinan, China to Shih-Chieh Tsui, a statesman between China and Japan and railroad magnate, and Chu-ping Wu, a real estate investor. In that era and in that country, premature babies were wrapped in an item of clothing from their father for strength and placed in a shoe to move them forward in life. In her case it worked, as she fought to live. Her mother stated that “This child was given to me by God, who let her live. Who am I to stand in her way?” Dorothy cared deeply for her family and delighted in caring for her grandmother and donating her allowance to needy house staff. She was a tomboy who loved to swim ½ mile out in Tsingtao harbor, jump horses, climb trees; and convinced their chauffeur to teach her to drive a Buick when she was 13. Her father chose Dorothy to ride with him because “she was afraid of nothing.” In Tsingtao, Dorothy attended an American Catholic high school run by an order in Milwaukee, WI. She was as mischievous and daring as most tomboys are and was often “in trouble” with the tolerant nuns who admired her good heart and her intelligence.

In the political turmoil leading to World War II, her father realized that the family would no longer be safe in Tsingtao. Her older sister was not in good health. The nuns encouraged her to go to college in America and assured her parents that she would be safe there. Instead of fleeing to Shanghai with her family, at age 17 she was accepted by St. Xavier Nursing College in Chicago, fully intending to return to China to help nurse people like her older sister. Chicago had a large population of Chinese people, which also drew Stephen Jen-Yao Tang, the man who would become her husband, to architectural engineering school at the University of Illinois from Shanghai, China. They were great friends in Chicago, but Dorothy was determined to join the same order as the nuns she knew in China. That lasted about 6 months. She was often “in trouble” with the mother superior due to her pranks and also had been receiving love letters from Stephen, which she showed her mother superior. The mother-superior told her that “God has another plan for you. Go marry this man if you love him!” This is probably why she liked to watch the “Sound of Music.”

In 1943, Dorothy wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt offering her services to “the country helping her country” and was given a direct commission in March 1943 in the Army Air Corps as a non-citizen second lieutenant RN at Luke Airfield, Arizona. Her prospective husband Stephen became a civilian instructor at the Air Force Academy teaching the Flying Tigers their aeronautics. He courted Dorothy and proposed to her by cutting her a record of love songs. They were married in 1944. Dorothy’s nursing supervisor, in an effort to save her from becoming pregnant (which was an automatic discharge), transferred her to Pecos Airbase in Texas to get her further from Stephen. But he used Air Force transports to visit Dorothy, who, ever mischievous at 4’11” and 94 lbs., managed to hide her subsequent pregnancy for 4 months until she was honorably discharged in March of 1945.

After the war ended in 1945, Dorothy’s family returned to Chicago area where they were the first Asian family to break the race barrier and be allowed into the Illinois “Levittown” community, Park Forest. Her husband Stephen, then a structural engineering architect, designed the foundations for the Prudential Building, Chicago’s first skyscraper. Dorothy proudly wore her Army Air Corps uniform to her citizenship hearing and the judge welcomed her to this country with an immediate pound of his gavel. Dorothy became fully engaged in raising three children and mentoring the new Asian families now allowed into Park Forest.

Dorothy worked as a nurse to help put all three children through college. At age fifty, Dorothy decided to fly and earned her pilot’s license. Dorothy was proud of her children giving them courage to push their limits: Janet who retired as a systems engineer for missile systems, Michael who developed the first commercial Satellite cloud pictures for US weather reporters and now works at MIT Lincoln Labs, and Stephen , a dermatologist, who help found the South Cove Community Health Center serving the health needs of 27,000 working poor Asians in the greater Boston area.

In 1987, Stephen and Dorothy relocated to Boston to be closer to families. Stephen passed away in 1989, and Dorothy due to failing health eventually moved to South Cove Manor. She leaves her sister Lily Tsui of Eugene, OR, her daughter Janet and her husband Wayne Stimens of Boston, her son Michael R. and his wife Dianne of Dracut, MA, and her son Stephen V. and his wife April of Boston; her grandchildren Lloyd, Daniel, Benjamin, Josh, Michael, Selena, and Alyssa; and seven great grandchildren.

A memorial celebration will be held on Saturday, November 17th, at 10 am at Story Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge. Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to Li Chen, Administrator of South Cove Manor, 120 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, 02118-2293.