Born in Anju, Pyeongan Province, Yoon Eung-ho expanded his knowledge of foreign affairs while transporting food for the Japanese army to Manchuria. At the age of 24, in 1904, he immigrated to Hawaii for labor and met Yoon Chi-ho, who had come to investigate the local immigration situation on the emperor’s orders, and was encouraged to study.
He arrived in San Francisco on August 23, 1906, joined the Korean National Association and Heungsadan, and lived for over 70 years by the spirit of Dosan Ahn Chang-ho. Yoon Eung-ho’s membership number was 15, and he honored Dosan’s belief that one must possess the three virtues of virtue, character, and wisdom, along with a certain level of skill, to live a meaningful life. He educated his children accordingly. His future wife, Kim Do-yeon, was studying nursing when she received a photograph of Yoon Eung-ho through a friend in America and came to the U.S.
Primarily working in rice farming in the Sacramento area, he was a tenant farmer who received 10% of the harvest from the landowners. While he made significant profits during good harvests, his life otherwise was just barely making ends meet. After dedicating over ten years to rice farming, he moved to the Delano area to cultivate watermelons, melons, potatoes, and cotton. He lived in Delano from 1936 to 1965, during which time he even opened a vegetable store for a while.
After the Stevens assassination incident, Lee Seung-man came from the East as an interpreter related to the trial of Jang In-hwan. However, when Lee Seung-man stated that he could not serve as an interpreter for a murder trial as a Christian, Yoon Eung-ho, along with Moon Yang-mok, persuaded him to come to the park. However, this eventually led to a physical altercation, and thereafter, Yoon Eung-ho had no further communication with Lee Seung-man for the rest of his life. His wife, Kim Do-yeon, is known for attending the monthly meetings of the Korean Women’s Patriotic Organization regularly for 50 years after its founding in 1919. Yoon Eung-ho is also referred to as the first immigrant from Southern California. For 50 years, the couple is known to have donated significant amounts of money to various organizations related to the Korean community.
Leave a Reply