A Family's Legacy of Love: From Adoption Papers to Singapore's Archives

This year we once again had the pleasure of being present for the National Library Board’s Donors' Appreciation Night, graced by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, held on 23 October 2026.

Upon our father’s death 3 years ago, we had donated, in his name, documents, keepsakes and photographs our dad had kept all the many years even before moving over to our Bedok kampong house in 1954. These were brought along to our HDB flat when we moved in 1974 and stayed there throughout the decades ever since. Over the years, he had expressed his desire to donate items of historical or heritage value to organisations such as the National Library Archives but did not get to do so in his lifetime.

Last year, on display, among other items donated by others, was a 1942 Japanese occupation dictionary, historical documents of the Bukit Timah Rubber Estates (1942) and 1919 photos of the Singapore Peace Celebration taken by our grandfather.

This year, we are so honoured that NLB had chosen to display the adoption documents detailing how our youngest paternal aunt came over to join our family, at just 3 years of age  – from the Ee family to our Tan family – during the Japanese Occupation war years. In her lifetime, our late aunt had indeed reconnected with her birth family for about twenty years before she passed on ten years ago.

Adoption was a common practice in those days of poverty and management of family size, but we found ourselves indeed blessed to have had her in our lives because we were so enriched by her presence. Indeed, our full admiration was for our grandmother, with no biological children of her own, willing to give a future to others, while fulfilling her own maternal need to love, to protect, to nurture and to provide. And because of her, our current families came to be – living lives in our kampong with our past, present and future somehow intertwined and connected in ways we could not have known otherwise.

Looking back, we are glad that the donation decision was made, thanks to our dad. All these items are available for viewing and research at the main library’s reference section in Victoria Street.