Hormat to our Grandmother

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The matriarch and first named owner of the Bedok kampong house was our grandmother Mdm Chan Ah Siew. The house was gifted to her and her children by our grandfather Ah Gong who passed away barely 3 months after everyone moved into the house in November 1954.  

Born in July 1897 in Singapore, she along with the rest of the family lived here until her death at age 73 in December 1969. Mama (that was how we addressed her) came from a humble background where she had to work to fend for herself, and circumstantially met our grandfather. 

She was a great cook, which pleased our Ah Gong tremendously and as a result she taught her children the same skills. Interestingly, besides the Baba Patois (we are a Peranakan household) and Cantonese dialect, she could also speak the Seyap( 四邑) dialect, which originated from the Guangdong province of China. 

What made our grandmother so great was that she decided to adopt all her children who all came from poor families thus giving each of them a chance at a better life. She would be strict to her children but she loved them and raised them well to be able contributing members of society.

When Mama passed away from illness, she was cremated and ashes interred at the Tse Tho Aum Buddhist temple that was located at 283 Upper Changi Road 7 ¾ milestone (see 1969 map for location). The temple moved to the current Sin Min Drive location in 1983 and we recently paid her a visit to offer our respects to this great lady who made such a difference in every one of our families’ lives. 

Without you Mama, we your grandchildren and greatgrandchildren would not be who we have come to be. Kita hormat nu Mama!

Family studio portrait taken in 1964

Our grandmother in this early 1920's photo (she was in her 20's)


1957 photo with one of her daughters at the garden of the Bedok kampong house (behind them is the holiday home of the Sultan of Pahang) in complete Nonya regalia

This screenshot of a 1969 map of Singapore indicating where Tse Tho Aum temple was in 1969 (yellow arrow) is from the NUS Libraries Historical Maps of Singapore 
(NUSLHMSG) and copyrights belong to them. https://libmaps.nus.edu.sg/

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