Betty Toy

Words of Wisdom, well, my advice to you—like I always do to my own children—study, do your homework first before you go and play.

Betty Toy

My name is Betty Toy. I was born in Canton, China, September 1937, and I lived in China for 12 years. I grew up in a very tiny village south of Hong Kong.

When I was in China we grew everything. We lived in a big house, no electricity, and no gas. People are very, very poor in China. You play with sticks, you play with stones. There might be candy at New Year's time.

When I was born my dad came to the United States because my uncle was here in the United States. My father had a restaurant business in Duluth, Minnesota. It took a long time for immigration because it's not easy to have people come to the U.S. from China. Finally, my mother and I came over in December of 1951. I was 14-years-old. We lived in Duluth in '51 and then after that I had four brothers that were all born in Duluth.

When I started school I started out in first grade. The only thing I could say when I first came over was "Hello, how are you? I am fine." From first grade they would take me to third grade. Then they said, “Okay, you’re done,” so they put me in sixth grade. After that, I was in the middle school for two years and then I went to the high school. I skipped a couple of grades in the high school too but that was okay.

I got married. I met my husband in Duluth. He was there also. We have three children. We moved down here to St. Anthony in 1968. We had a neighbor that lived down here who said he’d find us a house in St. Anthony because they have a good school district. So our children went through Wilshire Park and the high school.

I did voluntary work here at Wilshire Park. I volunteered for the teachers and then later on I worked in the Wilshire Park Elementary School library. I have been with the school district for 23 years and volunteering for seven.