Mama Blakang our beloved Step Grandmother

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12 October 1960. Our parents were in the midst of their honeymoon in Peninsular Malaysia when they got the shocking news. Beloved Mama Blakang had died within a week of being ill (she caught pneumonia then was felled by a heart attack) and she had attended their wedding 10 days earlier! She was just 53 years of age. Mama Blakang occupied a room in the lower section ‘at the back of the kampong house’ thus her moniker. Yes, she was one of our grandfather’s wives but got along so well with our grandma they lived and did things together even prior to moving to Bedok. Our father showed her a lot of respect referring to her as his step-mother. Abandoning his car in Kuala Lumpur, both returned home by train for the funeral the next day. Mama B was buried at the Hock San Teng Cemetery at the Somapah area (with that area later being developed into the Simei housing estate, her grave was exhumed in 1979 and she is now interred at Yishun Columbarium since).

Mama Blakang or Mdm Oh, her real name, was the only daughter (with 2 other brothers) from a business mercantile family. She was given in marriage to our grandfather (who already had other wives then) through a family agreement in the mid 1930’s while she was in her 30’s. Mama Blakang had a genteel upbringing, and she brought this sense of her style of refinement into the household. She moved into our Bedok kampong house together with the rest of the family in Nov 1954 and stayed there for 5 and a half years until her demise. Because she was an important part of the genesis story of the house, it behoves us to mention her and honour her memory in this post.

Thanks to Peterpak and his own recordings of her and her wider family here: https://mymindisrojak.blogspot.com/2019/05/oh-tiang-soo-and-family-bukit-brown.html







Bus chartering costs with Katong Bedok Bus Service


A 2024 visit to Mdm Oh, Mama Blakang at Yishun Columbarium, Singapore




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