Virginia Gee, 100 – Celebrating Our Centenarians

Virginia Gee has had 100 years of experience perfecting her culinary skills, which her family says she is known for. From Sacramento to Marysville and points in between, she has fed comfort Chinese food and homemade herbal soups to her family and friends.

She spent the first 18 years of her life in Sacramento. The oldest of nine children born to Chinese immigrants, she attended Lincoln Elementary and graduated from Sacramento High School. Her family lived in Land Park, not far from the former Jumbo Market that was located on South Land Park Drive. Her family was among the first Asians to own a home in this neighborhood.  Her mother, Wong Shee Fong, was a housewife; her father, Fred Fong, co-owned a barbershop in Old Sacramento with his cousin.

Shortly after graduating from high school, relatives introduced her to Jack Gee. He was 28 years old and working at Yuba Grocery with his cousin.  The couple married and she moved to Marysville to start her own family. They had six children: Carolyn, Beverly, Christine, Cynthia, Wendall, and Roddy.

Their first home was in downtown Marysville. When the home got too small for their growing family, they moved to a larger home in East Marysville, near Ellis Lake.  Virginia devoted her life to raising her children, making homemade herbal soups that was always a mainstay on the dinner table. “She’d make sure we drank some right before we went to bed,” says daughter, Beverly Chan. “She believed that the medicinal properties would be better absorbed in our bodies while we slept.”

Meanwhile, Jack and his cousin opened another grocery store called Yuba Market. After Jack passed away in 1973, Virginia went to work at the Del Monte Peach Cannery. It was a seasonal job, but she loved it.  She enjoyed socializing with the other workers. When she wasn’t at the cannery, Virginia filled her days gardening, making blankets, and cooking for everyone. Roddy says her fried rice was famous.  She lovingly labored over the annual Chinese New Year meal. She didn’t play mahjong, but she regularly cooked for her friends that did play. Beverly recalls drinking “brown soup” every winter.  The soup involved simmering deer hooves for hours in herbal soup broth.

In 2013, Virginia moved back to Sacramento and into Greenhaven Terrace, where her brother, Kui Fong, was living. For the past seven years, she’s lived with Roddy and enjoys visits from her extended family that now includes five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.