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Beachwood
By June Scharf
PIONEERS
Kam and Chien Liao triumph over adversity, settle in Beachwood and express bountiful gratitude.
W
hen Kam, 92, and Chien Liao, 93, were ready to move out of their apartment in Cleveland, they planned to buy a house in the suburbs on the east side, but their deposit check was swiftly returned when they tried to make a purchase. The realtor simply refused to sell to them, and they knew why. Because they are Chinese. The year was 1957. Their way around this obstacle was to buy a home that was being sold by its owner, and they found one available on North Woodland Road, Beachwood, its owner an engineer. “We couldn’t find a home anywhere else; no one would accept us,” says Chien, while seated at his dining room table where a Beachwood pennant is clearly displayed in a window that overlooks the large, woodsy backyard. Another Beachwood pennant sits in the front window. The Liaos are passionate about Beachwood. They also express bountiful gratitude for all the
ways their lives have gone well since living in this community. But equally as important to them are what they tout as their “firsts”: First Chinese residents here. Their sons, Winston (Class of ’66) and Wayne (Class of ’68), were the first Chinese graduates from Beachwood High School They established the first and only STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) scholarship through the Beachwood Schools Foundation that is awarded annually to a graduating BHS senior, with hopes of more scholarships to be added When they look back, the Liaos remember Mr. Colt, Beachwood's last farmer in the Beachwood Village, helping them plant their new lawn, and how their children used to explore the back woods of their home to catch tadpoles well before Beachwood Place was built. Chien reports that their neighbors here have long regarded them as friends, and that they are very popular on their street, even
to garnering an invitation early on by an Italian neighbor, who did not speak English, to join him in his basement for a glass of wine that was made from dandelions planted in his yard. Chien, however, doesn’t drink alcohol and had to convey that to the neighbor while also revealing that his “favorite beverage is Lake Erie.” Chien’s journey began in 1947 when he left mainland China, just before social and political changes swept the country. Previously, both he and Kam had attended missionary universities in China, which enabled them to have a firm grasp of English. Chien had been in college in Shanghai, where he was studying chemistry while Kam was studying architectural engineering. Chien came to the U.S. first (“all I had with me was what’s in here,” he says, pointing to his head) and attended the University of North Dakota on a scholarship, where he earned a master’s degree in chemistry. Next, he was offered another scholarship at Wayne
University (later named Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry. Several years later, when it came time to name their second child, whom they’d been told was a girl, they needed to scramble at the last minute to choose a boy’s name because of the doctor’s error. “Wayne” sounded like a good choice, since Chien had a positive educational experience at the school. Kam emigrated one-and-a-half years after Chien, but she needed to leave Winston, their first born son, with his grandmothers in
One profound lesson they both learned after emigrating was that “money is not that important, but principles are,” says Chien.
8 Beachwood Buzz n September 2015
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