Tai LI Hoffman

October 31, 1935 – November 2, 2026

Tai-Li Hoffman née Chin passed away peacefully of old age on November 2, 2026, just two days after her 91st birthday, at her home in Vienna, Virginia.

She was born in Beijing, China, on October 31, 1935, the daughter of the late Ting Shin Chin and Shao Ming Chin. As a child, she lived through World War II and the Japanese occupation of China, and then the Chinese Civil War. As Mao Zedong’s forces took Beijing, she escaped with her family to Taiwan in 1948. It was the first of many journeys in a life that would span the globe.

As the wife of Foreign Service Officer William Hoffman, she lived in eleven countries and explored countless others, setting foot on every continent except Antarctica. Wherever the Foreign Service sent them, she made a home. Her first priority was raising her two children and supporting her husband’s work, but she also sought out employment wherever she could, making the most of the limited professional opportunities available abroad. She possessed a beautiful singing voice, was a gifted cook, a gracious hostess, a talented seamstress and tailor, and she embraced the cultures, cuisines, and traditions of every country she lived in.

After returning to the United States in her early fifties, she began a career of her own at the U.S. Department of State as a procurement officer. She rose through the ranks and retired as a GS-9 in 1998, the same year she lost her beloved husband, William (1935–1998).

Tai-Li was complex, passionate, intelligent, and fiercely independent. She held herself to the highest standards and lived by strong morals and values. She was fiercely protective of her family, both immediate and extended, as well as her friends and colleagues, and she always put others before herself. She left this world on her own terms: at home with family, with her dignity intact, and free of pain.

Our family is deeply grateful to Medicare and to Vitas Health Care (hospice), whose care kept her safe and comfortable through her final days.

She is survived by her daughter, Teri Li Hoffman-Boswell; her son, Carl Louis Hoffman, and his husband, Dr. Anthony Peter Worby; her five surviving siblings (she was one of nine); and numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, great-grandnieces, great-grandnephews, colleagues, and friends.

Tai-Li was an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life, marked by resilience, curiosity, compassion, and a deep devotion to everyone she loved. She will be dearly missed.

A private service will be held on November 8, 2026, at National Funeral Home & Memorial Park in Falls Church, Virginia. It will be followed by an informal gathering at her home in Vienna, marking the seventh day after her passing, when, according to tradition, her spirit returns home.