William Lum Sing
April 16, 1920 - August 21, 2009
Obituary
William Lum Sing, 89, a pioneering businessman and significant fund-raiser in Seattle’s Asian American community, died in Seattle on August 21 due to complications from a stroke.
Utilizing his business and investment savvy for community service, Mr. Sing was a key fund-raiser for the Chinese Baptist Church, enabling it to build a new facility in Seattle’s Beacon Hill district in 1976. He was also an active member and former commander of Cathay Post 186 of the American Legion. His success in managing the Post’s investment portfolio allowed the Post to make a significant contribution to the expansion and renovation of the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle in 2008.
In the mid-1950s, Mr. Sing became one of the first Americans to open post-Korean War trade between the U.S. and South Korea. He did so by launching Daihan Importing Co., a wholesale import-export business featuring brass home decorative items, which soon flourished in selling goods from all over Asia long before ‘Made in Japan’ or ‘Made in China’ became household words. As an extension of that business, which he ran successfully until he retired, he operated retail stores selling imported items at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and the Pavilion Mall near Southcenter.
Mr. Sing was healthy, vigorous, and active until shortly before his death, dancing with his wife, Lily, at least three times a week and organizing an annual Asian American community New Year’s Eve dance attended by more than 250 people.
Mr. Sing’s life embodied the resourceful and enterprising spirit of Chinese American immigrants who overcame discrimination and hardship to build a promising life for their families. Born April 16, 1920, in Astoria, Ore., Mr. Sing was the son of a Chinese immigrant merchant who opened a general store in rural Mississippi, crossing cultural barriers by serving a poor African American community. But the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 wiped out the store, causing the Sing family to flee the area with what they could carry and return to the Pacific Northwest. In 1930, after living in Oregon for three years, the family moved to Seattle, starting over with a new grocery store.
It was then, during the tough times of the Great Depression, that Mr. Sing’s enterprising and adventurous spirit grew. During the summer after his sophomore year of high school, Mr. Sing worked in a cannery in Alaska and then hitchhiked and rode rail cars to places ranging from St. Louis to Los Angeles. By the time he was 21, he took over his family’s grocery business and built the business into a three-store chain called 20th Century Markets. The business was thriving, serving a multiracial clientele.
Mr. Sing had to leave the business to others when he served a stint during World War II as an air gunnery instructor in the Army. Mr. Sing returned to revive the business after the war, but another setback came when Mr. Sing’s father, who had taught him entrepreneurial lessons as well as the value of family, fell ill with multiple sclerosis. In an era before health insurance, the dedicated and grateful son sold virtually all his assets, including the grocery business and family home, to pay his father’s medical bills. But Mr. Sing was far from finished, building his import business from the ground up.
Despite his busy schedule of volunteer work and business, Mr. Sing always found time to devote to his family and to his many hobbies, including fishing and writing. While attending Seattle’s Garfield High School, he founded, wrote, and published a periodical called the Young China News. Last year, as part of his contribution to a family reunion, he wrote 17 short essays about the family’s history. Among the many topics he covered in those essays was the mentoring and other help he received from his father, his first-grade teacher in Mississippi, his English teacher at Garfield High, and his Boy Scout master. Throughout his life he was inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem ‘If,’ which celebrates resilience and hope in the midst of life’s challenges.
Mr. Sing is survived by his wife, Lily; two children, Bill Jr. of Los Angeles and Merrile of Chevy Chase, Md.; and one brother, Fred of Washington, D.C. A memorial service and reception celebrating his life will be held at the Chinese Baptist Church, 5801 Beacon Ave. S. in Seattle, at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 19. The family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Chinese Baptist Church.