The Tse Family "Cho Uk" (祖屋) – Part 5 of 5 -- The Tse Family Treasures

Uncle and Aunt 2's house is a good place for treasure hunt. When I stayed there last December, I found my Autocad (Release 11!) book still on the shelf! That book is 16 years old and I used it at my first year of college!!!!!

The Treasure (1)

Comparing to what Rose had found, my Autocad book is nothing:

Cheque book of Great Grandpa's grocery store!

Great Grandpa had a grocery store in Edmonton. When he's getting old, Uncles 2 and 3 went to Edmonton to take care of him and also to inherit the grocery store. The brothers later on started their own career and therefore the grocery store was shut down at the end. It would be fun, I think, to check out the place where the grocery store had been some times :)


The Treasure (2)

The next item is even more exciting! Drum roll, please......

Pictures of young Grandma and young Grandpa!!!!!

For the top left picture, Rose said it stated at the back that Grandpa was 14 at the time. For the one in top right, it said on the picture that it was 1940 in HK. Mom said Grandpa went to school in HK, so that might be why the picture was taking here.

For Grandma's pictures, they were taken before Grandma and Grandpa were married. Great Grandpa used to put up these pictures, and told everyone that his daughter-in-law was prettier than any calendar girls!

The Tse's in Canada

I always thought Great Grandpa was the first one in Canada, but Grandma and Uncle 2 said it's Great-great Grandpa (i.e. Dad of Great Grandpa, Grandpa of Grandpa, or Great Grandpa of your parents :) who first landed on the Canadian soil.

Great-great Grandpa first settled in Saskatchewan, and opened a cafe. (Rose suspected it was the one in the picture above.) When Great Grandpa was a kid, he somehow got into trouble with another kid so they sent him to Great-great Grandpa as some kind of punishment or an "escape". Great Grandpa first helped in the cafe as well, and then returned to China to get married. Great Grandpa somehow relocated to Edmonton later and started the Jay Grocery.

When I was a kid, I heard a story about how Great Grandpa took a month to travel from China to Vancouver on a ship, and then another week from Vancouver to Edmonton on a carriage. But now with the Saskatchewan cafe kicking in, I am confused whether the week-long trip was to Edmonton or Saskatchewan.

So this wraps up the series on the modern "cho uk". Let's talk about the real "cho uk" next time.

P.S. Special thanks to Rose who digged out all these pictures and "researched" most of the content of this post from Grandma and Uncle 2. More of Rose's findings in the following posts.