Annie Joe turned 100 on May 25, 2023. She lives at Maple Tree Village, where she continues to live a full life. She started working by helping in her parents’ Stockton market, then worked in a restaurant, next as a seamstress, and ultimately ended with a career in the field of electronics.
Her parents immigrated from China and became farmworkers, harvesting asparagus near Ryde, California. They ultimately scraped together enough money to open a Chinese market and restaurant in Stockton. The third oldest of eight children, Annie and her siblings all worked in their parent’s Chinese market, which sold poultry, rice, and other goods. In addition to going to school and helping in the store, she cooked for the family. Annie also accompanied her father on his rounds to deliver goods. Her job was to stay with the horse and wagon to ward off thieves!
She attended Lafayette School in Stockton and, as many Chinese children did, attended Chinese school in the evenings and Saturdays. According to her granddaughter Allison Joe, Annie married early, but her husband passed soon after. She moved to San Francisco, where Annie met her second husband, James (Jimmy) Joe. They had three children together, Dennis, Eric, and Spencer. The family later moved to Redwood City to help Annie’s sister Elsie run her restaurant, the Star Café. Jimmy passed away in the early 1980s. Annie continued to work at Litton Electronics until she retired in 1988.
Annie then moved to Sacramento, where she met Richard Gottlieb, her third husband. He has now passed. Annie’s three remaining siblings are Harry, Elaine, and Frank, and she has eight grandchildren.
In 2019, Annie appeared in a pilot web series called “Honest Abe: The Backstory,” which was partially filmed in the Delta town of Locke. She is seen in the show standing at the counter in a store, quietly counting jujubes while the action flies around her. The pilot never became a full series, but we can add “actress” to her list of accomplishments.
Annie has had many careers: store clerk, seamstress, cook, and assembly line worker. She shared that her long life must be “in the genes” as her father lived to be 102. But more importantly, she said the key to a long life is “don’t think about it; just live it and be nice to people.”
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