Yiu Hai Seto Quon

As a young woman in China, Yiu Hai Seto married Him Gin Quon, an American resident whose father Quon Soon Doon (關崇俊) owned a restaurant in the city's Chinatown neighborhood.[1] She stayed in Guangdong, China after Him Gin Quon returned to California; their first daughter Katherine was born there in 1917. She and Katherine joined Him Gin Quon in Los Angeles in 1922.[2]

Quon and her husband opened a restaurant with their sons Frank and Wallace, the Quon Brothers Grand Star Restaurant, in 1946.[3] Mrs. Quon was the chef at the restaurant for many years, adapting Chinese dishes for both Chinese and American diners.[4] She remained active in the kitchen and welcoming guests at Grand Star into her nineties,[5] until a broken hip in 1997 left her too frail to continue.[6][7]

In her later years, Yiu Hai Quon was often celebrated as a community fixture. In 1984, she featured in a photo exhibit of nine prominent Chinese-American women in Los Angeles, on view at the Kennedy Library at California State University at Los Angeles.[8] She was one of three women honored by the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California in the fiftieth anniversary parade in Chinatown in 1988.[9] And in 1994, she was one of four Chinese-American women spotlighted in a public art project by photographer Carol Nye.[10]

The Quons were parents of nine children, seven daughters and two sons. Yiu Hai Seto Quon was widowed in 1965. She died in the summer of 1999, in Montebello, California; her age at death was variously reported as 99, 101, or 102 years.[11] Her son Wallace Quon, her grandsons Tony Quon and Larry Jung, and her great-grandson Jason Fujimoto have all served on the board of the Los Angeles Chinatown Corporation.[12]

The Grand Star is still in business in Chinatown, now as a bar and jazz club.[13] Stories of Yiu Hai Seto Quon and the Grand Star restaurant are the focus of Natasha Uppal's 2004 short documentary, "One Night at the Grand Star".[14]