Gloria Wong Chun

Gloria Wong Chun (Gloria Yuk Lin Wong) was born in Honolulu on April 14, 1931 to Rena Ne Kyau Wong (Lau) and Herbert Moon Wong. She was the eldest of seven children in the family.

Gloria is described by everyone as a soft-spoken person, kind and pleasant. Her siblings describe her that way. Her children describe her that way. The staff at Arcadia describe her that way. She had a soothing smile, and a soft laugh that would emerge when prompted by the occasion.

Her sisters remember that Gloria was her father’s favorite child and that he thought very highly of her. Although the family had very limited resources, her father gave her an expensive pair of sewing scissors and helped Gloria attend sewing school. Using those skills, Gloria made her sister Trudy a white laced dress for her 3rd grade Christmas play, a perfectly fitting beautiful dress, the first nice dress Trudy ever had.

Gloria always loved birds, including her first pet bird Lucky, a parakeet that Gloria doted upon and treated almost like a child.

Gloria learned how to cook from her mother, and her siblings and daughters all remember her cooking. Soups were her specialty, including chicken fig soup, ginger soup, oxtail soup. And beyond soup, every New Year Day would she would make a large batch of jai (monk food).

Gloria was the only child in the Wong family that was fluent speaking Cantonese Chinese. For decades to come, the family would always rely on Gloria to converse with the staff at dim sum and other Chinese restaurants. After she’d ordered, she’d tell everyone what dishes were coming, often with that laugh.

Upon graduating from high school, Gloria got a job at Ford Island and helped support her family financially. She had a 40 year career in the federal government, retiring from what was then Barber’s Point Naval Air Station. After a few more years working for the city and county of Honolulu, she retired for good.

Her much younger sisters remember looking up to their grownup sister treating them to nice things and experiences they hadn’t experienced before. Her sister Linda recalls that when she was about 7 she wanted a doll like all her friends had; Gloria gave Linda a beautiful doll for Christmas that year which made Linda so very happy. Trudy recalls that on the weekend following Gloria’s biweekly paydays, Gloria would take her shopping, but the real highlight of that trip was stopping at Elite Bakery and enjoying dream cake. There are nice bakeries today that make dream cake, but none match Elite’s.

On March 9, 1952, she married Stephen Wah Sup Chun and the two set up life together. Her husband Stephen recalled he asked Gloria if she’d wait for him to return from college on the mainland to get married. She told him no, she wouldn’t wait, and they decided to get married shortly thereafter. They were married over 71 years.

The couple had two daughters, Lorna and Lisa, and after initially starting out together in a house at Long Lane, the family built a house in Moanalua, where she and the family resided until Gloria and Stephen moved to Arcadia to complete their lives.

Like Gloria’s siblings, her daughter Lisa remember her mother’s gentle way in getting her point across, often with a soft smile.

Gloria sought to enrich her daughters culturally, so she faithfully took Lorna and Lisa to piano lessons and kung fu lessons; she also enrolled Lorna in a weekend Chinese language/culture school.

Gloria assisted Stephen in cultivating the garden and fruit trees at the Moanalua house, and then, of course, cooking healthy dishes from the harvest. Gloria was a key cog in the Au in Kwai family association’s Annual Narcissus plant sale.

Lisa remembers the family weekend ritual involved lunch out on Saturdays, including Taco Bell for burrito supreme (Gloria’s favorite), pizza, won ton min and dim sum.

Gloria’s daughter Lorna often recounted the family weekend ritual also included going to the theater to enjoy kung fu movies; they never missed a showing of a new Shaw Brothers kung fu movie. Movies were followed by a Chinese restaurant meal where of course Gloria would converse with the staff in Cantonese.

Lisa recalled that Gloria enjoyed facilitating slumber parties for her daughters. Gloria would cook breakfast for the kids when they slumbered overnight. 

Her son-in-law Carl recounts that when he and Lorna would come over their house, Gloria would always greet them with, ‘oh, hi, Lorna, oh, hi, Carl’, accompanied with a smile. That greeting was heard hundreds of times over the years, including last December, when Carl and Gloria’s namesake granddaughter visited Arcadia.

In 2014, not too long after moving to Arcadia, Gloria fell and suffered an injury that robbed her of the ability to walk. This didn’t, however, rob her of the ability to enjoy life. She enjoyed the wheelchair-limousine service from Stephen down to the dining hall for meals, and then enjoyed Stephen’s doting catering to her as he carefully selected her favorite foods. In this time frame, Gloria adapted and enjoyed a daily routine of reading the newspaper and watching her favorite television shows. She also cherished the visits from her children/grandchildren, sisters, nephews/niece. Her visitors were always told by the Arcadia staff, ‘your mom/aunt/sister is so pleasant and nice!’

Gloria is survived by her husband of 71 + years, Stephen Wah Sup Chun, a daughter, Lisa Sugimoto of Maui, three grandchildren, Gloria Sykes, Patrick Sykes, and Matthew Sykes, all of Maryland, two sons-in-law Glenn Sugimoto of Maui and Carl Sykes of New Mexico, sisters Trudy Aloiau, Linda Medallia, and Laura Cox and brother Edward Wong, all of Oahu, and several nephews and nieces. She is preceded in death by her daughter Lorna Sykes, grandson Samuel Sykes, sister Betty Ann, a baby brother, brothers-in-law Ben Medallia and Richard Aloiau and nephew Jason Wong.