Hong Leonard, Lillian
Lillian Hong Leonard was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Charles Hong and Lim Megan Hong. Charles Hong was 12 years old when he immigrated to Canada with his father in 1923. He returned to China to marry Lim, and the couple gave birth to two daughters. Because of The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 and subsequent immigration restrictions, Lim and her daughters remained in China until around 1954, when they immigrated to Canada. Lillian was born in 1957, two years after the family established their first laundry business on Clyde Street and Birmingham Street in Halifax. Lim worked alongside her husband in addition to cooking all the meals and looking after their three daughters. When Charles and Lim closed the doors of Hong’s Laundry in 1978 (then located on Dresden Row), it was one of the last businesses of its kind in Canada. The remaining equipment became part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization collection, and was featured in the exhibition, Enduring Hardship: The Chinese Laundry in Canada (2000).
‘[H]e got into it because there were only two means of making a living for the Chinese at the time. There was making a living as being a cook in a restaurant, doing laundry…’
In this clip, Lillian Hong Leonard discusses her father’s decision to enter into the laundry business, and his decision to retire in 1978, closing down the last Chinese hand laundry in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lillian notes some of the other laundries she remembers from her childhood. She explains that her father donated his laundry equipment to the Canadian Museum of Civilization when he retired.
sur 
